Austrian saxophonist and composer Hans Koller is dead. He died from pneumonia on Monday, December 21st 2003 in Vienna. In February he would have been 83. Hans Koller was born February 12th 1921 in Vienna. His father worked for the railroad, was an engaged socialist and supported his son in his wish to play the saxophone. When he was 14, Koller was accepted at the Vienna Music Academy and at once promoted to the 5th semester. Soon he played jazz and performed with dance bands. He was drafted in 1941 and became a prisoner of war until 1946, organizing a camp band in the American POW camp. After his discharge he founded the "Hot Club Vienna" in 1946. He played tenor saxophone with Horst Winter's orchestra and then moved to Germany, working for drummer Freddie Brocksieper in Munich, later organizing his own quartet with pianist Jutta Hipp, bassist Shorty Roeder and drummer Karl Sanner. The band was influenced by American Cool Jazz and soon became one of the most important modern jazz ensembles in Germany. From 1957 to 1958 Koller worked for the radio orchestra of SWF Baden-Baden under arranger Eddie Sauter. He played with Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Konitz, Zoot Sims and Stan Kenton, performed during the world exhibition in Brussels in 1958 with Benny Goodman. He received many offers from the US where reviews of his records were highly encouraging, but he preferred to stay in Europe. In 1958 Koller became musical director of NDR Jazzworkshop in Hamburg. In the early 1960s he was member of the European All Stars and in 1965 together with guitarist Attila Zoller and pianist Martial Solal recorded "Zo-Ko-So" which drew praise from the critics. He also composed for film and in 1968/69 was musical director of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. In 1970 Koller returned to Vienna, founded the Free Sound Ensemble, in which he favored collective improvisation and an advanced free jazz approach. 1975 and 1978 he recorded with a big brass ensemble, after 1980 often played in small ensembles, sometimes just with a duo partner. While working at a study book for saxophone, he founded a saxophone ensemble in 1982 which featured Wolfgang Puschnig and Bernd Konrad besides Koller. Koller also was a painter of abstract art with numerous exhibitions to his name. In 1995 Koller withdraw from the music business completely. In 1996 the Austrian jazz prize was named after him. Hans Koller was one of the most important European saxophonists of the post war era. He especially showed German musicians in the 1950s that playing jazz was not merely copying others but needed one's own, individual approach. Koller's ensembles in the 1950s followed the ideal of cool jazz in the tradition of Stan Getz and Zoot Sims (sound wise) or Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz (in melodic concept). In the 1960s he followed this approach of linear polyphony with compositional experiments as well as free improvisation as documented with his Free Sound bands during the 1970s. In his musical universe the linear solo was only one side of the complexity of collective improvisation. In the 1980s Koller returned to work on saxophone related issues, composed for saxophone ensemble, tried to show the many sides of instrumental sounds, himself making more and more use of the soprano saxophone. Koller's art was recognized not only in Germany and Austria, but also in other countries where a critic once identified jazz in Germany with the headline "Jazz in Koller-Land". Hans Koller died, and with him, Europe's jazz has lost another father figure. (Wolfram Knauer) _________________________________________________________________ WuÃten Sie, daà Sie Ihren Hotmail-Posteingang auch über den MSN Messenger abrufen können? http://messenger.msn.de Jetzt kostenlos downloaden und einfach testen!