Vera Auer

Vera Auer (born April 20, 1919 in Vienna ; † August 2, 1996 in Newsane , Vermont ) was an Austrian accordionist and vibraphonist . She was one of the first European musicians to play modern jazz and catch up with the jazz avant-garde.

Live and act

The great niece of the violinist Leopold Auer learned to play the classical piano and only later learned to play the accordion. In 1948 Auer founded a combo with the guitarist Attila Zoller , in which Auer first played the accordion and later also the vibraphone; Helmuth Zukovits on bass and Franz Mikuliska on drums formed the rhythm section. The group made records under the name Vera Auer and her soloists in 1950 and also appeared on broadcasts by Österreichische Radioverkehr AG ( RAVAG ). In 1951 the band received the audience award in the "Combo" category at the Vienna Jazz Competition . 1951 followed a first foreign tour to Turkey and West Germany, where it came to an interaction with Friedrich Gulda . Later Joe Zawinul , Hans Salomon and Toni Stricker played in their band. From 1954 she played mainly in West Germany due to the bad conditions for jazz musicians in Austria. She has accompanied soloists such as Donald Byrd , Lucky Thompson and Art Taylor . In 1956 she performed with Jean-Louis Chautemps at the German Jazz Festival .

In 1959 she married - a well-known jazz musician - the American Brian Boucher, with whom she moved to the United States in 1960. She attended the Lenox School of Jazz , where Gunther Schuller , John Lewis and George Russell were among her teachers. In North America, her musical partners included Dave Burns , Cal Massey , JJ Johnson , Mal Waldron , Ted Curson , Zoot Sims , Walter Perkins and Richard Williams . Around 1970 she recorded an LP with her quintet under the title “Positive Vibes”, which was released in 1977 and still sounds surprisingly fresh.

She was also a journalist, wrote poetry, played at events of the jazz mobile and at jazz vespers at St. Peter's Church in New York. At the end of 1984 the American Public Broadcasting Service Program dedicated an hour-long portrait to her.

literature

• Linda Dahl: Stormy Weather. The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen. London 1984, ISBN 0-7043-2477-6 .
• Arnold Jay Smith: Vera Auer: Positive Vibes. Honey Dew 6621 (plate text).
• Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 .