Franz Koglmann

Franz Koglmann: Near Blue - A Taste of Melancholy

by Alberto Bazzurro
October 7, 2024

Inciso giusto un anno fa, nell'ottobre 2023, questo nuovo lavoro di uno dei musicisti forse meno valutati (forse anche perché appartati, anche stilisticamente) della scena jazzistica (in senso lato) contemporanea com'è fin dai tardi anni Settanta, Franz Koglmann (in Italia lo conoscemmo grazie alla Mitteleuropa Orchestra di Andrea Centazzo), ha la singolarità di essere “raddoppiato," nel senso che i 39 minuti coperti dai dieci brani che lo compongono vengono riproposti subito di seguito alla loro prima versione in una seconda, ...

Franz Koglmann Septet: Fruits Of Solitude

by Mark Corroto
February 19, 2020

Franz Koglmann must be a connoisseur of vinification, i.e. winemaking, because his Fruits Of Solitude has the feel of a master vintner at work. Specifically, wine blends like Super Tuscans or Côtes du Rhônes mark his amalgam of European chamber music and American jazz. Koglmann is a true polymath in that he hears all and rejects any codifications, much like Duke Ellington did throughout his long career. As for Ellington, his classic “Solitude" is the inspiration for the ...

Franz Koglmann, Mario Arcari, Attila Pasztor: g(ood)luck

by Alberto Bazzurro
February 26, 2016

Torna Franz Koglmann, di cui avevamo un po' perso le tracce, e rinverdisce umori e architetture del glorioso trio KoKoKo (Koglmann Koltermann Koch), sempre col suo flicorno (più di rado la tromba) a dialogare morbidamente con un'ancia e un arco grave. Oggi le geometrie appaiono se possibile ancor più oleate, l'ancia è doppia, e il lessico calato in atmosfere più classiche (nell'accezione più larga del termine), meno incline all'azzardo, talora persino all'antigrazioso (là). Si parte con un ...

Franz Koglmann: Join!

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 16, 2014

Austrian, Vienna-based composer Franz Koglmann always used music as a means to present his ideas, often provocative perspectives, on cultural phenomena at large. He alienated the American jazz community with A White Line (hatART, 1990), where he sketched an alternative history of jazz based on white innovative musicians. Later he reconstructed the compositional ideas of Johan Strauss to modern jazz vocabulary on An Affair with Strauss (Between the Lines, 2000) and upstaged the poems of T.S. Elliot on Fear Death ...

Franz Koglmann: Lo-lee-ta: Music on Nabokov

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 9, 2009

Viennese composer and trumpeter Franz Koglmann is a well-known commuter between the arts and modern chamber jazz. His subtle, sophisticated compositions create a set of mirrors that reflect a distinct artistic mean: literature on Make Believe (Between the Lines, 1999), inspired by Jean Cocteau; poetry on O Moon My Pin-Up (hatOLOGY, 1997), inspired by Ezra Pound and Fear Death By Water (Between the Lines, 2003), dedicated to poetry of T.S. Elliot; cinematic images on Venus In Transit (Between the Lines, ...

Franz Koglmann: Viewing Jazz through Other Arts

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 21, 2006

The music of Viennese composer/trumpeter/flugelhornist Franz Koglmann sounds like no other. He manages to marry his love for the West Coast cool jazz with elements from European modern and classic music composers, especially Franz Schubert, Alban Berg and Anton von Webern. His thematic compositions, recorded almost solely for the Swiss, Basel-based HatHut and for the German, Frankfurt-based Between the Lines labels, are complex. Quite often ironic and melancholic, always playful, detached from sentimentality but still very emotional, and usually demanding. ...

Between The Lines Turns Five, Part 2-2

by Budd Kopman
November 14, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2

I apologize for the delay between parts 1 and 2 of this trek through an incredibly varied body of recordings. Rather than repeat my introductory remarks (seen here ), I will summarize the basic esthetic of the record label known as Between the Lines. Franz Koglmann wants to explore the boundary edges of the compositional and the improvisational, the intersection of jazz (however you define it) with other performing arts and the juxtaposition of “high" ...

Franz Koglmann interviewed today at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
March 21, 2006

Viennese trumpeter Franz Koglmann's spent the better part of his life marrying all manner of art forms into his music, from West Coast cool to European classicism to the perhaps difficult-to-find nexus point of seemingly disparate non-musical areas including architecture, poetry, film and philosophy.

All About Jazz contributor Eyal Hareuveni spoke with Koglmannn following a performance at the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival in Israel. Franz Koglmann: Viewing Jazz Through Other Arts is a fascinating look at an often overlooked artist ...
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