Fritz Münzer

Fritz Münzer (born September 12, 1934 in Mannheim ; † June 4, 2007 Weinheim ) was a German saxophonist , clarinetist and flutist of modern jazz .

Career

Münzer studied clarinet at the Mannheim Conservatory. In 1956 he began as a professional musician with Hans Laib , with whom he toured the US soldiers' clubs in Morocco with West Coast Jazz . In 1959 he had his first own formation with Cherry Kirchgässner (piano), Rudi Fuesers (trombone), Klaus “Kiki” Kirstätter (bass) and Joe Hackbarth (drums). With the new quintet from 1961 with Manfred Schoof (trumpet), Joe Haider (piano), Eric Peter (bass) and Hartwig Bartz (drums), he was also internationally successful and increasingly in demand as a composer and arranger (live recording from 1962 on CD). He later played with guitarists Werner Poehlert and Klaus R. Nagel. In the 1970s and 1980s there was work for advertising, the founding of a swing set and record productions with the pianist and composer Wolfgang Lauth . His formation Second Direction , in which he combined the grammar of hard bop with elements of jazz rock , received international attention . The title Storm Flute from the album Four Corners (1976) served for a long time as a melody for the weather report of the then pop wave SWF 3 of the Südwestfunk .

From 1987 he taught at the University of Mannheim ; The College Jazz Ensemble was created as part of the Studium Generale . Together with the musicians Olaf Schönborn and Thomas Siffling , who he met there , he founded the jazz label "Jazz 'n' Arts". With this independent label he produced his remarkable record Blue Ideas with his own compositions, which he arranged, played by his tentet, which mainly includes younger musicians from the Rhein-Neckar jazz scene. In 2005 Fritz Münzer was honored by the “Jazzinitiative Schwetzingen” with a big concert in the more than 250-year-old Schwetzingen Rococo Theater, in which both the tentet and a formation of musicians from Münzer's generation played.

Web links

• Obituary of the Rhine Stream JazzBand