Günter Lenz is a German jazz bassist and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Activities

First he learned, assisted by Carlo Bohländer, playing guitar and since the mid-1950s, he played jazz in the clubs of the U.S. Army. During the 1959/1960 national service, he switched to the bass. 1961 Albert Mangelsdorff

Albert Mangelsdorff

Albert Mangelsdorff was one of the most accredited and innovative trombonists of modern jazz who became famous for his distinctive technique of playing multiphonics.-Biography:...

 picked him up as member of the Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet. Since then Lenz has also became a member of the "hr-jazz ensemble," for which he arranged and composed too. In 1965 he worked in the quintet of Krzysztof Komeda

Krzysztof Komeda

Krzysztof Komeda was a Polish film music composer and jazz pianist. Perhaps best-known for his work in film scores, Komeda wrote the scores for Roman Polanski’s films Rosemary’s Baby, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Knife in the Water and Cul-de-sac...

. In 1968 he played with Joachim Kühn

Joachim Kühn

-Biography:Kühn was a musical prodigy and made his debut as a concert pianist, having studied classical piano and composition with Arthur Schmidt-Elsey. Influenced by his elder brother, clarinetist Rolf Kühn, he simultaneously got interested in jazz. In 1961 he became a professional jazz musician....

 and Aldo Romano

Aldo Romano

Aldo Romano is a jazz drummer. He also started a rock group in 1971.-Biography:He moved to France as a child and by the 1950s he was playing guitar and drums professionally in Paris, but his career gained notice when he started working with Don Cherry in 1963. He recorded with Steve Lacy and...

 in a band led by Barney Wilen

Barney Wilen

Barney Wilen was a French tenor and soprano saxophonist and jazz composer.Wilen was born in Nice; his father was an American dentist turned inventor, and his mother was French. He began performing in clubs in Nice after being encouraged by Blaise Cendrars who was a friend of his mother...

 at the Berlin Jazz Days. 1970, he played with the George Russell Sextet, and also with a band led by Leon Thomas

Leon Thomas

Amos Leon Thomas Jr was an American avant garde jazz singer from East St. Louis, Illinois.Thomas studied music at Tennessee State University. In the 1960s he was a vocalist for Count Basie and others....

. 1972 Günter Lenz played with Lightning Hopkins. This allowed him to collect big band experience.

American jazz musicians like to work with him. Chet Baker

Chet Baker

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...

, Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...

, Oliver Nelson

Oliver Nelson

Oliver Edward Nelson was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger and composer.-Early life and career:...

 and Benny Bailey

Benny Bailey

Benny Bailey, born Ernest Harold Bailey , was an American bebop and hard-bop jazz trumpeter.-Biography:...

 engaged him for their concert tours and record productions, as well as German musicians such as Eugen Cicero, Horst Jankowski

Horst Jankowski

Horst Jankowski was a classically trained German pianist, most famous for his internationally successful easy listening music.-Biography:...

 and Volker Kriegel

Volker Kriegel

Volker Kriegel was a German jazz guitarist and composer born in Darmstadt, Germany, perhaps most noteworthy for his contributions to the European jazz rock genre and for his collaborations with the American vibraphonist Dave Pike...

. Mid-1970s, he joined with the drummer Peter Giger

Peter Giger

Peter Giger is a Swiss percussionist and bandleader.-----His musical CV:1958 professional musician, tours in Europe with the Tremble Kids, Oskar Klein, Albert Nicholas, Bill Coleman, Joe Turner, Wild Bill Davison, Peanuts Holland1960 after short guest performance with Armand Gordons Ragtime Band,...

 to "Clarinet Contrast

Clarinet Contrast

Clarinet Contrast was a clarinet ensemble with rhythm group led by clarinetist Theo Jörgensmann.The group, which included members from four country's, existed from 1975 to 1977 and had awakened the interest in the contemporary jazzscene for the clarinet and was also one of the participants in the...

", an avantgarde band around the clarinetists Perry Robinson

Perry Robinson

Perry Morris Robinson is an American jazz clarinetist and composer. He is the son of the noted composer Earl Robinson. -Biography:...

, Theo Jörgensmann

Theo Jörgensmann

Theodor Franz Jörgensmann is a jazz and free-improvising Basset clarinet player and composer. He has been a professional musician since 1975.-Activities:...

, Bernd Konrad and Michel Pilz.
1991 he recorded "Life at the Montreux Music Festival" in trio-formation with Uli Lenz

Uli Lenz

Uli Lenz is a German composer, pianist, and producer creating music in the modern jazz genre.- Background :Born in Frankfurt am Main, he began taking piano lessons at the age of four. In the seventies he studied music composition for classical Piano and Cello at Dr...

 and Allen Blairman

Allen Blairman

Allen Blairman is an American jazz drummer best known for his collaboration with Albert Ayler and Mal WaldronAllen Blairman is living in Heidelberg, Germany since 1971.-Career:...

Lenz also created orchestral arrangements for Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...

. From 2001 to 2006 he taught as a bass professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart.

External links

• Günter Lenz at myspace