Horst Liepolt
Encyclopedia
Horst Liepolt is a jazz
producer and artist.
In Australia, and later in the United States, he organized numerous successful jazz concerts and festivals and also produced a large number of jazz recordings.
In Australia he originated the long-running Manly Jazz Festival and jazz at the Festival of Sydney, booked bands for The Basement (Sydney's top jazz club of the 1970s) and presented a number of concerts under his banner of Music Is An Open Sky. His "44" recording label featured some of Australia's top jazz musicians and was representative of many of the Australian jazz
groups that were active in the 1970s.
His two New York jazz clubs Sweet Basil and Lush Life presented a number of world renowned jazz musicians during the 1980s and early 1990s. He produced over 48 jazz recordings by high profile US musicians including the Grammy Award
winning album Bud and Bird by Gil Evans
.
His father was a writer, a member of the Bauhaus
movement, and his mother was a concert pianist, daughter of a world renowned Swedish oboe player who migrated to Germany to join the Berlin Philharmonic. Even though the Nazi regime was heavily opposed to jazz, Liepolt was able to hear some of the music during the war years by visiting underground Berlin jazz clubs and listening to jazz records with friends.
In 1951 he migrated to Australia and became very active producing and promoting Australian jazz
. He started his career as a jazz producer when he opened up Jazz Centre 44, a renowned and successful jazz venue in Melbourne
which ran for over ten years and featured many top Australian jazz musicians of that era such as Stewie Speer
, Brian Brown
, Alan Lee, and The Melbourne New Orleans Jazz Band. In 1960 Liepolt moved to Sydney
where he became involved with record production and management with acts such as Renee Geyer
and Sun
and Max Merritt & The Meteors
. In the early 1970s he formed a working relationship with The Basement nightclub, Sydney's top jazz club of that era, booking many top contemporary jazz bands for the earlier nights of the week.
Liepolt organized a large number of successful jazz concerts and festivals in Sydney during the 1970s, including the Festival of Sydney jazz festival, the Manly Jazz Festival and his own series of "Music Is An Open Sky" concerts which were presented at high profile venues such as the Sydney Opera House
, the (now demolished) Regent Theatre
, the Sydney Town Hall
and the Capitol Theatre.
He also produced over thirty recordings for the 44 Jazz Label, distributed by Philips
/Phonogram Records
Records, which was set up by Liepolt himself and named after the fact that 1944 was the first year that he heard jazz in Germany. Many of Australia's's top jazz artists appeared on these recordings including Galapagos Duck
, Jazz Co/op, Bryce Rohde
, Mike Nock
, Brian Brown
, Don Burrows
, Col Nolan, Don Andrews
, and Peter Boothman
.
In 1981 Liepolt moved to the United States and settled in New York City
where he opened and ran two successful jazz clubs, Sweet Basil and Lush Life, which hosted some of the top US jazz musicians of the 1980s and 90s including Gil Evans
, Art Blakey
, Cedar Walton
and McCoy Tyner
. He also organized and booked artists for the Greenwich Village Jazz Festival for eight years running. Most of the top Greenwich Village
jazz clubs participated in this event.
Liepolt produced almost fifty jazz albums in New York during the 1980s, including the album Bud and Bird by Gil Evans
and the Monday Night Orchestra, which won a Grammy Award
for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band in 1989. Another album that he produced Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Live at Sweet Basil was nominated for a Grammy award in 1986.
Some of his paintings are exhibited at the Ward-Nasse Art Gallery in New York and a number of them have been used for CDs, album covers and posters.
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
producer and artist.
In Australia, and later in the United States, he organized numerous successful jazz concerts and festivals and also produced a large number of jazz recordings.
In Australia he originated the long-running Manly Jazz Festival and jazz at the Festival of Sydney, booked bands for The Basement (Sydney's top jazz club of the 1970s) and presented a number of concerts under his banner of Music Is An Open Sky. His "44" recording label featured some of Australia's top jazz musicians and was representative of many of the Australian jazz
Australian jazz
Jazz music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz...
groups that were active in the 1970s.
His two New York jazz clubs Sweet Basil and Lush Life presented a number of world renowned jazz musicians during the 1980s and early 1990s. He produced over 48 jazz recordings by high profile US musicians including the Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
winning album Bud and Bird by Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...
.
Biography
Horst Liepolt was born in Berlin, Germany on 27 July 1927.His father was a writer, a member of the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
movement, and his mother was a concert pianist, daughter of a world renowned Swedish oboe player who migrated to Germany to join the Berlin Philharmonic. Even though the Nazi regime was heavily opposed to jazz, Liepolt was able to hear some of the music during the war years by visiting underground Berlin jazz clubs and listening to jazz records with friends.
In 1951 he migrated to Australia and became very active producing and promoting Australian jazz
Australian jazz
Jazz music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz...
. He started his career as a jazz producer when he opened up Jazz Centre 44, a renowned and successful jazz venue in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
which ran for over ten years and featured many top Australian jazz musicians of that era such as Stewie Speer
Stewie Speer
Stewie Speer was an Australian jazz and rock drummer who is best known as a member of the 1960s-70s Australian group Max Merritt & The Meteors....
, Brian Brown
Brian Brown (musician)
Brian Brown OAM, is an Australian Jazz musician and educator. He plays the soprano and tenor saxophones, flutes, synthesizers , panpipes and a leather bowhorn designed by the late Garry Greenwood, .-Biography:Brown has performed as a soloist and with his own ensembles since the mid 1950s throughout...
, Alan Lee, and The Melbourne New Orleans Jazz Band. In 1960 Liepolt moved to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
where he became involved with record production and management with acts such as Renee Geyer
Renée Geyer
Renée Rebecca Geyer is an Australian singer who has long been regarded as one of the finest exponents of jazz, soul and R&B idioms. She had commercial success as a solo artist in Australia, with "It's a Man's Man's World", "Heading in the Right Direction" and "Stares and Whispers" in the 1970s and...
and Sun
Sun 1972
Originally from Wollongong, a town on the South Coast of NSW Keith Shadwick, Gary Norwell, Henry Correy, Ian Smith and blues guitarist Allan Vander Linden formed a blues band called King Biscuit which play the universities and nightclub circuit in Sydney in 1968-71...
and Max Merritt & The Meteors
Max Merritt
Max Merritt is a New Zealand-born singer-songwriter and guitarist who is renowned as an interpreter of soul music and R&B...
. In the early 1970s he formed a working relationship with The Basement nightclub, Sydney's top jazz club of that era, booking many top contemporary jazz bands for the earlier nights of the week.
Liepolt organized a large number of successful jazz concerts and festivals in Sydney during the 1970s, including the Festival of Sydney jazz festival, the Manly Jazz Festival and his own series of "Music Is An Open Sky" concerts which were presented at high profile venues such as the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
, the (now demolished) Regent Theatre
Regent Theatre (Sydney)
The Regent Theatre was a heritage-listed theatre in Sydney, Australia, which was demolished in 1988.-Description and history:The Regent Theatre was Hoyts' showcase "picture palace" in Sydney, designed by the distinguished architect Cedric Ballantyne and built by James Porter & Sons.Located at...
, the Sydney Town Hall
Sydney Town Hall
The Sydney Town Hall is a landmark sandstone building located in the heart of Sydney. It stands opposite the Queen Victoria Building and alongside St Andrew's Cathedral...
and the Capitol Theatre.
He also produced over thirty recordings for the 44 Jazz Label, distributed by Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
/Phonogram Records
Phonogram Records
Phonogram Records was started in 1962 as a joint venture between Philips Records and Deutsche Grammophon. In 1972, Phonogram was merged with Polydor Records into PolyGram....
Records, which was set up by Liepolt himself and named after the fact that 1944 was the first year that he heard jazz in Germany. Many of Australia's's top jazz artists appeared on these recordings including Galapagos Duck
Galapagos Duck
Galapagos Duck is a popular Australian jazz band. Formed in 1969, they have an extensive history of international touring, including:*Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland*Jazz Yatra Festival, Bombay, India*American Musexpo...
, Jazz Co/op, Bryce Rohde
Bryce Rohde
Bryce Benno Rohde is an Australian jazz pianist and composer. He was strongly influenced by George Russell's musical conceptions....
, Mike Nock
Mike Nock
Mike Nock is a jazz pianist, currently based in Australia. He began studying piano at 11 and by 18 was performing in Australia. He headed a trio that toured England in 1961 and then attended Berklee College of Music...
, Brian Brown
Brian Brown (musician)
Brian Brown OAM, is an Australian Jazz musician and educator. He plays the soprano and tenor saxophones, flutes, synthesizers , panpipes and a leather bowhorn designed by the late Garry Greenwood, .-Biography:Brown has performed as a soloist and with his own ensembles since the mid 1950s throughout...
, Don Burrows
Don Burrows
Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute....
, Col Nolan, Don Andrews
Don Andrews
Donald Clarke Andrews is a Canadian white supremacist. He is also the leader of the neo-Nazi Nationalist Party of Canada and a perennial candidate for mayor of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.-Early years:...
, and Peter Boothman
Peter Boothman
Peter Boothman is an Australian jazz guitarist, composer, and educator. Since he started playing in the late 1960s he has worked at most top jazz venues in Sydney including The Basement, Festival of Sydney, Sydney Opera House, Jenny's, The Rocks Push, El Rocco, Wentworth Supper Club, and Horst...
.
In 1981 Liepolt moved to the United States and settled in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where he opened and ran two successful jazz clubs, Sweet Basil and Lush Life, which hosted some of the top US jazz musicians of the 1980s and 90s including Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...
, Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
, Cedar Walton
Cedar Walton
Cedar Anthony Walton, Junior is an American hard bop jazz pianist.-Biography:Walton grew up in Dallas, Texas. His mother was an aspiring concert pianist, and was Walton's initial teacher. She also took him to jazz performances around Dallas...
and McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...
. He also organized and booked artists for the Greenwich Village Jazz Festival for eight years running. Most of the top Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
jazz clubs participated in this event.
Liepolt produced almost fifty jazz albums in New York during the 1980s, including the album Bud and Bird by Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...
and the Monday Night Orchestra, which won a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band in 1989. Another album that he produced Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Live at Sweet Basil was nominated for a Grammy award in 1986.
Social matters and interests
Horst Liepolt lives in New York City with his wife Clarita. He has mostly retired from jazz production and now spends a lot of his time in abstract painting, much of it being for his ongoing series "Jazz – From the Inside Looking Out."Some of his paintings are exhibited at the Ward-Nasse Art Gallery in New York and a number of them have been used for CDs, album covers and posters.