Werner X. Uehlinger

Werner Xaver Uehlinger (* 1935 in Reinach BL ) is a Swiss record producer for jazz and avant-garde music, founder of HatHut Records with its headquarters in Basel .

Uehlinger came to jazz while listening to AFN in the 1950s, when he was living on the border with Germany in Switzerland. In his own words, parts of Charlie Parker's Dial Records were his first jazz record, and later Charles Mingus and Cecil Taylor were formative for him. Ideas to found his own jazz record company came to him in 1974 when he was helping to finance an LP by Joe McPhee , who previously had to release his last record in-house. He traveled to McPhee near New York while still working full-time as a marketing manager for Sandoz . From this, the Hat Hut Records label was born in 1975. Musicians like Steve Lacy and Milo Fine followed , and later Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton , Peter Brötzmann , the Vienna Art Orchestra , Misha Mengelberg , Joe Maneri , Matthew Shipp , Ran Blake , Theo Jörgensmann , Mike Westbrook . Uehlinger also re-issues rare jazz records (such as Ne Plus Ultra by Warne Marsh ) and releases old radio recordings on his label .

Within Hat Hut, the hatOLOGY sub-labels are responsible for jazz and improvised music, hatArt for contemporary composers and hatNOIR for innovative projects. Around 25 albums are released each year (around 300 by 2000). Great emphasis is placed on accompanying texts on the albums. Until 2000, the work of the label was supported by the UBS bank .

In 1999 he received the Culture Prize of the City of Basel .

Web links

• Interview with All About Jazz 2003
• His record label Hat Hut
• Tom Gsteiger on Uehlinger and Hat Hut
• Media release from the city of Basel on the award of the culture prize