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Material for your reporting on Harry Pepl: short biographies ready to use, documented key facts, press photos with credits and the contact for the estate.
Harry Pepl (1945 to 2005) was an Austrian jazz guitarist, composer and university teacher. He played in Jazzzwio with Werner Pirchner, with Benny Goodman, Jack DeJohnette and Michel Portal, and in the band Air Mail. With Real-time Composing he turned improvisations into compositions. From 1977 until the mid-1990s he taught in Graz.
Harry Pepl (1945 to 2005) was an Austrian jazz guitarist, composer and university teacher. Born in Vienna, he taught himself jazz from records and in the 1970s was a session musician and guitarist with the ORF Big Band. With the vibraphonist Werner Pirchner he formed Jazzzwio, which played the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1981. He was guitarist with Benny Goodman, recorded for ECM with Jack DeJohnette and with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen (“Cracked Mirrors”, 1988), and played with Wolfgang Puschnig in the band Air Mail and, in France, with Michel Portal. Using MIDI guitar and computer, he developed Real-time Composing, in which improvised voices become scores; this is how he wrote for the Kronos Quartet and the Artis-Quartett. From 1977 he taught at the Graz music academy, from 1984 as professor. From the mid-1990s he worked in his own studio in Hernstein, Lower Austria. Since 2015 releases from his estate have appeared on Fullmax Recordings.
Harry Pepl was born in Vienna on 10 September 1945 and died in Wiener Neustadt on 5 December 2005. He started out on the accordion, took up the guitar at 15 and taught himself jazz by copying recordings by Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall and others note for note. After years with the dance band Austrian Evergreens, he became a session musician and guitarist with the ORF Big Band in the 1970s.
From the mid-1970s he and the Tyrolean vibraphonist Werner Pirchner formed the duo Jazzzwio. The duo recorded “Gegenwind” in 1979, played the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1981 and in 1982 expanded into a trio with Jack DeJohnette for an ECM album; it featured Pepl's composition “Air, Love & Vitamins”, which many musicians still play today. In 1980 and 1981 Pepl was the guitarist in Benny Goodman's quartet. He played with Wolfgang Puschnig, Mike Richmond and Wolfgang Reisinger in the band Air Mail, in France with Michel Portal, Dave Liebman and Jack DeJohnette, and recorded “Volver” with Enrico Rava and Dino Saluzzi. His ECM album “Cracked Mirrors” with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen received the German Record Critics' Award (Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik) in 1988.
Pepl was one of the first jazz musicians anywhere to work with MIDI guitar and computer. From this he developed Real-time Composing or Instant Composing: he improvised voice by voice, had the result printed out as a score and corrected nothing afterwards. This produced commissioned works for Ensemble Wien, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, the Kronos Quartet, STUDIO PERCUSSION graz and the Artis-Quartett, as well as the album “Schönberg Improvations” (1990) with a Bösendorfer computer grand piano.
From 1977 he taught jazz guitar at the Graz music academy, today the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, and from 1984 as full professor; his students included Wolfgang Muthspiel. The province of Lower Austria honoured him with culture prizes for music in 1991 and 1998.
From the mid-1990s Pepl worked mainly in his studio in Hernstein, Lower Austria. There he created the piano albums “Consequence” and “Flow” and the Lonely Single Swinger Band, a one-man band in which he played all the instruments himself. The estate is administered by his son Daniel Pepl; releases from it have appeared on Fullmax Recordings since 2015. Since 2018 Clemens Salesny, Martin Bayer, Andi Schreiber and Valentin Duit have been playing live with Pepl's original tracks; their album “Harry Pepl (tape) & The (Lonely) Single Swinger Band: Live” (2025) took second place in the Best Album category at the Austrian Jazz Award 2025.
All details are documented with sources in the Chronology and the Biography.
Free to use, please with the source given. Further press voices with references are in the press archive.
He was an amazing guitarist, pianist and composer. His harmonic, rhythmic and sound concepts were very unique!
Giant of improvisation
was, in his active phase, one of the most important guitarists in the world
In the moment when I make music or compose with inspiration, which for me is one and the same, I believe in the absolute: in the truth in which all opposites coincide.
There is so much: when I start telling it, everything comes crashing down on my head, all the sounds, all the notes, the music and the experiences, actually the whole world!
New Yorkers are flabbergasted every time they hear that I come from the Austrian mountains.
I wanted you to be able to hear the room on the CD as well.
For interviews, review copies, print-quality photos and archive material, the contact is Daniel Pepl, son of Harry Pepl, administrator of the musical estate and producer of the releases. Please send enquiries via the form for press enquiries.
The photos may be used with credit in coverage of Harry Pepl and his music. Please ask for any other use.
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The guitar professor in Graz is regarded internationally as one of the best in his field.
In the seventies there was hardly a faster jazz guitarist in Europe than the Austrian Harry Pepl.
one of the defining instrumentalists of the European jazz scene
One of Europe’s leading jazz guitarists
He was an amazing guitarist, pianist and composer. His harmonic, rhythmic and sound concepts were very unique!
Giant of improvisation
was, in his active phase, one of the most important guitarists in the world
Harald Pepl (guitar)
