Heiner Althaus

Heiner Althaus (* 1953 in Basel ) is a Swiss jazz musician ( tenor and soprano saxophone , guitar ). Today he is active in a wide range of genres, from gypsy jazz and avant-garde jazz to world music .

Live and act

Althaus first played in the prog rock band McChurch Soundroom , with whom he can also be heard as guitarist on the album Delusion (1971). In the next few years he concentrated on the saxophone. After graduating from the Swiss Jazz School in 1977, he switched to the jazz rock sextet Magog for Andy Scherrer . Althaus stayed with his brass colleagues Hans Kennel and Paul Haag after the dissolution of Magog in 1978 in the jazz community , which appeared at the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival and recorded a first album there. He also formed the Swiss Jazz Quintet with Armin Keil, Rainer Weber, David Elias and Walter Schmocker , which also toured internationally and produced several albums. In the 1990s he was co-leader of the oriental jazz band "Althaus-Schönhaus Express" together with Sascha Schönhaus. Since 1998 he has increasingly emerged as a guitarist, for example in his New Jazz Trio and in the Gypsy Jazz Trio Belleville with guitarist Matt Baldinger and bassist Tibor Elekes and Flo Hunziker, partly reinforced by violinist Adam Taubitz or clarinetist George Ricci as Hot Club de Bâle . He also recorded with Marianne Racine , Randy Wirz and the Basel Jazz All Stars .

Prizes and awards

In 1977 Althaus won the Soloist Prize at the National Jazz and Rock Festival in Augst . In 1979 he was selected as the Swiss representative for the Eurojazz concert of the European Broadcasting Union in Helsinki.

Discographic notes

• Swiss Jazz Quintet: Imagination feat. Franco Ambrosetti (1981, with Robert Morgenthaler , Max Neissendorfer , Walter Schmocker, David Elias)
• Jazz Community il topo ( Unit Records 1983, with Hans Kennel, Paul Haag, Jürg Ammann, Michel Poffet , David Elias)
• Bruno Steffen-Heiner Althaus Quartet: In Between (Brambus 1992, with Hans Peter Künzle , Alfred Kramer )
• Althaus – Schoenhaus Express: First Station (with Sascha Schönhaus, Hans Feigenwinter , Bänz Oester , Norbert Pfammatter )
• Heiner Althaus Quartet: Live (2001, with Jean-Paul Brodbeck , Michael Chylewski, Michi Wipf)
• Belleville Entre Ciel et Terre (2013), with Adam Taubitz , Matt Baldinger, Flo Hunziker

Lexigraphic references

• Bruno Spoerri , Biographical Lexicon of Swiss Jazz CD supplement to: B. Spoerri (Hrsg.): Jazz in Switzerland. History and stories. Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0739-6

Web links

• Web presence with discography
• Brief portrait (JazzIndex)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Musica Helvetica: New Swiss Talents - Swiss Jazz Quintet (NST 6/1981)
2. ↑ Jazz Community ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.