Harry Pepl - Harry Pepl / Clemens Salesny / Martin Bayer / Peter Primus Frosch / Agnes Heginger (2020)

CD ONE contains previously unreleased material from "Harry Pepl's Lonely Single Swinger Band", recorded between 1996 and 2005. Pepl can be heard here on guitar, bass, drums, piano and vocals. Daniel Pepl, his son and producer of this double CD, reviewed the material with Clemens Salesny and Martin Bayer over several days to select the pieces to be released. They where also assisted in their endeavor by Pepl's personal rating system, which "awarded" stars to each recording depending on his assessment of its quality.
Salesny and Bayer then took on the task of arranging the music. This was no easy undertaking for some pieces, no individual instrumental tracks existed; others had multiple tracks to choose from.
With this process complete, Clemens Salesny, Martin Bayer, Peter Primus Frosch and Agnes Heginger came together now, in 2015, to complement this carefully arranged world of sound with new recordings - to make music, in various combinations, with Harry Pepl.
Those listening to this music, then, will hear something doubly new: the unreleased discoveries from Pepl's vaults, together with its magnificent expansion by the above mentioned musicians.

CD TWO features some of Harry Pepl's better-known works in various chamber instrumentations. Guest musicians are featured on some of the pieces, including German fluegelhornist Herbert Joos (a one-time musical comrade of Pepl's) and members of the next generation of Austrian musicians: bassist Alex Meissl, trumpeter Mario Rom, and keyboardist Clemens Wenger.
The second CD once again emphasizes Pepl's strengths as a composer, which are being increasingly heard and studied by the younger generation, Pepl was one of the most intriguing jazz musicians Austria has ever produced and it will be years before his complete works have been properly examined - but until then, this double CD of works both familiar and unreleased, performed by exponents of the Austrian jazz scene, will serve as one of the best opportunities to get to know Harry Pepl's music.