Listen

The sequence follows the order in which the recordings were made. Line-ups, titles and sources are listed in each case in the Discography.

1. Jazzzwio: “Gegenwind” (1979)

Recorded on 1 and 2 December 1979 in a small studio on the Bisamberg: Harry Pepl on Ovation guitar, Werner Pirchner on vibraphone and marimba, without bass or drums. Here you can hear how closely attuned the two were, right down to Pirchner's whistling. The album was released on Mood Records.

2. Benny Goodman: “Berlin 1980” (recorded 1980)

Two concerts in the Berlin Philharmonie in November 1980 with Goodman's quartet. Pepl played deliberately plainly, with a small amplifier and without reverb. The title “Harry Pepl's Blues” came about spontaneously at the rehearsal.

3. Pirchner, Pepl, Jazzzwio: “Live, Montreux 1981”

In 1988, the Wochenpresse called the appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival on 12 July 1981 the first big step in Pepl's international career. The recording was first released on WEA; in 2009 it came out together with a concert from Innsbruck (1984) and video as “Live in Concerts”.

4. Werner Pirchner / Harry Pepl / Jack DeJohnette (ECM, 1983)

Recorded in the studio on one afternoon in June 1982, after DeJohnette had spontaneously joined the duo in Saalfelden in 1980. The album contains the first recording of “Air, Love & Vitamins”, which has since become a standard of Austrian jazz.

5. Air Mail: “Light Blues” (1988)

Recorded live in Wels in July 1987, with Wolfgang Puschnig, Mike Richmond and Wolfgang Reisinger. The band rehearsed its themes in unison, like a pop band, in order to be free in improvisation. In the title piece “The Halley's Comet, Light Blue Blues”, Pepl wanted to change harmonies and rhythm spontaneously while playing.

6. Pepl, Joos, Christensen: “Cracked Mirrors” (ECM, 1988)

Pepl and the flugelhorn player Herbert Joos played in the Wachau in February 1987; Jon Christensen added the drums later in Oslo. It is the first album on which the MIDI guitar shapes the sound. It received the German Record Critics' Award in 1988.

7. “Schönberg Improvations” (1990)

Piano music without a pianist: Pepl played the voices via MIDI guitar into a Bösendorfer 290 SE computer grand piano, joined by Dave Liebman, Wolfgang Reisinger and Johannes Enders. A key work for his Real-time Composing.

8. Harry Pepl Quartet: “N.Y.C. Impressure” (recorded 1992)

Recorded in New York in June 1992 with Claus Stötter, Paul Nowinski and Jojo Mayer, one day after a concert at the Knitting Factory. In 1994, a writer for the Salzburger Nachrichten called it the Austrian jazz album of the year. Fullmax Recordings re-released the album in 2020.

9. “Flow” (1996)

Twelve pieces for solo piano, recorded in a single take on 10 March 1996 in the Brahms Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. Pepl wanted the room to be audible on the CD as well. If you want to keep listening: the second piano album, “Consequence”, recorded in November 1995 at the Bösendorfer factory, was released by Fullmax Recordings in 2020.

10. “Harry Pepl's Lonely Single Swinger Band (Volume One)” (2020)

Eight pieces from the home studio in Hernstein, Lower Austria, in which Pepl layered the instruments himself, track by track, including “Dedicated To Michel Noiret's Stockhausen”, recorded in August 2004 according to Heckel. How these tracks sound on stage today is shown by the album “Harry Pepl (tape) & The (Lonely) Single Swinger Band: Live” from 2025 (Projects).