Gebhard Ullmann

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With Ullmann / Swell's Chicago Plan in Club W71 (Weikersheim 2018)
Gebhard Ullmann in the Unterfahrt jazz club (Munich 2013)

Gebhard Ullmann (born November 2, 1957 in Bad Godesberg ) is a German jazz musician (saxophone, flutes, bass clarinet) and composer.

Live and act

Ullmann first had classical flute lessons in his youth. From 1976 he studied flute and saxophone at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater and also took saxophone lessons with Herb Geller and Dave Liebman . According to his homepage, he also studied medicine from 1977 to 1983 . During this time he was already working with the guitarist Andreas Willers in a duo, but also in a blues band and a trio with keyboards and Dadaist vocal improvisations.

He lived in Berlin since 1983 and made a decisive contribution to the scene there. He has also lived in New York City since 1999 and led a wide variety of formations in both Berlin and NYC. In 1984 Ullmann and Willers developed the joint quartet Out to Lunch with Niko Schäuble , which went on international tours, played at major festivals and toured and recorded with Enrico Rava . In 1987 Willers and Ullmann played as Minimal Kidds with Trilok Gurtu , later they appeared with Steve Argüelles and recorded with Bob Stewart , Marvin Smitty Smith and Phil Haynes . In 1991 he began with the Ta Lam project , one of his most spectacular line-ups (up to ten woodwinds plus accordionist Hans Hassler), with which he made guest appearances at festivals around the world and released four recordings.

In 1993 he started the Basement Research project together with Soul Note founder Giovanni Bonandrini , initially a quartet with Ellery Eskelin (later Tony Malaby), Drew Gress and Phil Haynes, it developed into a quintet (with Julian Argüelles , Steve Swell , John Hébert later Pascal Niggenkemper and Gerald Cleaver ).

Further projects are the Clarinet Trio (with Jürgen Kupke and Michael Thieke or Theo Nabicht , 5 CDs on Leo Records), the Trio BassX3 (this combines two double basses - Chris Dahlgren and Peter Herbert , later Clayton Thomas - with his bass clarinet and bass flute) , the transatlantic quartet Conference Call (with Michael Jefry Stevens , Joe Fonda and George Schuller ), the likewise transatlantic quartet The Chicago Plan (with Steve Swell, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Michael Zerang ). In 2014 he released the Double Trio de Clarinettes (the Clarinet Trio together with the French Trio de Clarinettes ), the Berlin quartet GULF of Berlin and a duo production with the vocalist Almut Kühne . In the latter project as well as in a new solo program, he worked for the first time using sampling and looping. In 2017, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, he released the first CD with the electro / acoustic trio Das Condensate (with Oliver Potratz and Eric Schaefer ) and gave a duo concert at the Jazzfest Berlin with the drummer and pianist Tyshawn Sorey . In 2019 he released the first CD with the world's first quarter-tone piano quartet mikroPULS (with Hans Lüdemann , Oliver Potratz and Eric Schaefer ).

In 2020 Ullmann released his 60th record as a band leader / co-leader. As a sideman he worked for in the Springtime of Günter Lenz in George and Ed Schuller project Schull Dogs , in the quartet of the New York guitarist Scott DuBois , the Berlin Project Stereo Lisa , in Chris Dahlgren Lexicon , in The Silent Jazz Ensemble , the Berlin big band Die Elefanten , in the Hannes Zerbes Jazz Orchestra, in the Berlin orchestra of the pianist Satoko Fujii and in the project Septych of the Belgian pianist Bram de Looze.

He works u. a. with Paul Bley , Satoko Fujii, Armand Angster , Sylvain Kassap , Michael Rabinovitz, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky , the Ensemble Percussion de Guinee, Han Bennink , William Parker , Herb Robertson , Bob Moses , Keith Tippett , Frank Gratkowski , Bobby Previte , Glen Moore , Lauren Newton , Andrew Cyrille , Sylvie Courvoisier , Alexander von Schlippenbach , Willem Breuker , Michael Riessler , Rita Marcotulli , Dieter Glawischnig , Tom Rainey , Sergeij Starostin, Beñat Achiary , Frank Möbus or Ivo Papasov .

He also worked in a wide variety of theater and cross-genre projects, including with Otto Sander and the Heiner Müller project by Hannes Zerbe.

Prizes and awards

For his work he received the Julius Hemphill Composition Award (1999) in two categories, (together with Willers) the German Phono Academy Award (1983) and the SWF Jazz Award (1987) as well as a number of grants and prizes from the city of Berlin. The second CD of his Ta Lam project was awarded the 1995 German Record Critics' Prize as the best jazz CD of the year. Down Beat has his CDs Final Answer (2002), The Bigband Project (2004) and New Basement Research (2008) Poetry in Motion (2008) News? No news! (2010) Ta Lam 11- Mingus! (2011) Clarinet Trio 4 (2012) and "Hat And Shoes" (2015) were among the best records of the year. Other renowned magazines and online sites such as AllAbout Jazz New York regularly award Gebhard Ullmann publications with top ratings. The CD Transatlantic received the prestigious Choc des Jazz Magazine in France. Since 2005, Ullmann has been regularly listed in the Down Beat critics poll in the “Rising Star” category. In 2017 he received the city of Berlin's first jazz prize .

Discographic notes

Lexigraphic entry

Web links

Commons : Gebhard Ullmann  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Ullmann, Gebhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German jazz musician (saxophone, flute, bass clarinet) and composer
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH bad Godesberg