Bob Degen
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Robert William "Bob" Degen (born January 24, 1944 in Scranton , Pennsylvania) is an American pianist and composer of modern jazz . Since the 1970s he has been considered "an important part of the German, especially Frankfurt, jazz scene" ( Jürgen Wölfer ).
Life
Degen, who attended jazz concerts in New York with his father at an early age, studied until 1965 at the Berklee School of Music with Margaret Chaloff, who also taught Herbie Hancock and Steve Kuhn , among others .
After a short stay in Germany, Degen attracted attention at the Gulda Competition in 1966 and returned to the United States, where he worked with Mark Levinson and Paul Motian and with the Glenn Miller Band under Buddy DeFranco . In the early 1970s he toured Japan with Sadao Watanabe , where he was celebrated as a star. From 1972 on he worked again - from Sulzbach im Taunus - in Germany (temporarily at the beginning of the new millennium in the USA), where he played with Albert Mangelsdorff and was a member of the jazz ensemble of the Hessischer Rundfunk until 1999 . In the Voices and Springtime groups there was a long-term collaboration with radio colleagues Heinz Sauer (duo, quartet) and Günter Lenz .
Other partners include a. Dexter Gordon , Art Farmer , Lee Konitz , Attila Zoller , Leo Wright , Hans Koller , Makaya Ntshoko , Adelhard Roidinger , Zbigniew Namysłowski , Bill Stewart , Gerd Dudek , Wolfgang Engstfeld , Wolfgang Lackerschmid , Terumasa Hino , Tony Lakatos , Claudia Carbo , Cameron Brown , Sven Faller as well as Jürgen Wuchner and Janusz Stefański .
The game of Bill Evans and Paul Bley shaped him. In 1994 he received the Jazz Prize of the State of Hesse . The Bob Degen Trio included (as of 2018) Markus Schieferdecker on double bass and Peter Perfido on drums. The Bob Degen Quartet (as of 2019) consists of Thomas Bachmann on saxophones, Ralf Cetto on double bass and Uli Schiffelholz on drums.
Selection discography
- Celebrations (with Manfred Eicher , Fred Braceful ; Calig, 1968)
- Bob Degen / Harvie Swartz Chartreuse ( Enja , 1977)
- Heinz Sauer & Bob Degen Ellingtonia Revisited ( L + R , 1981)
- Sequoia Song (with Isla Eckinger , Makaya Ntshoko; Enja, 1982)
- Bob Degen / Hartmut Kracht / Peter Weiss Joy feat. Zbigniew Namysłowski (1993)
- Charlie Mariano : Deep in a Dream (with Isla Eckinger, Jarrod Cagwin ; Enja, 2001)
- Jake Remembered (with Valentín Garvie , Markus Schieferdecker, Peter Perfido; Enja, 2010)
- Eric Plandé / Bob Degen Human Nature ( Cristal Records , 2010)
- Michel Pilz / Bob Degen: Tilly's Eyes (with Markus Schieferdecker, Peter Perfido; JazzHausMusik 2011)
- Frankfurt Exploration: Blue Clouds (with Valentín Garvie, Heinz Sauer, Markus Schieferdecker, Uli Schiffelholz; Unit Records 2016)
- Matthias Nadolny / Bob Degen: You'Re My Everything (Klaeng 2016; Best List 2/2016 at the German Record Critics' Prize )
literature
- Dieter Römer: To Germany because of jazz music: Bob Degen . In: Wolfgang Sandner : Jazz in Frankfurt. Societäts-Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 112-115.
- Jürgen Wölfer : Jazz in Germany. The encyclopedia. All musicians and record companies from 1920 until today. Hannibal, Höfen 2008, ISBN 978-3-85445-274-4 .
Web links
- Web presence of the musician
- Frankfurt jazz pianist Bob Degen is 70 years old
- Bob Degen at Discogs (English)
supporting documents
- ↑ Bob Degen Trio (Bamberg) , Jazzpages, accessed January 3, 2019
- ↑ Bob Degen Quartet at the Marbuger Jazzclub , accessed January 3, 2019
- ↑ You'Re My Everything - Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik , Jazztage Frankenthal, accessed January 3, 2019
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rapier, Bob |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sword, Robert William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz pianist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 24, 1944 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Scranton , Pennsylvania |