at different times in bands I led or co-lead:
Ellery Eskelin, Han Bennink, Joe Fonda, Michael Stevens, Enrico Rava, Gerry Hemingway, Andreas Willers, Trilok Gurtu, Gerry Hemingway, Rita Marcotulli, Frank Gratkowski, Mark Helias, Herb Robertson, Frank Moebus, Hans Hassler, George Schuller, Michael Moore, Steve Swell, Barry Altschul, Heiner Reinhardt, Ab Baars, Hill Greene, Daniel Erdmann, Carlos Bica, Sylvie Courvoisier, Chris Dahlgren, Art Lande, Phil Haynes, Johannes Fink, Paul Bley, Drew Gress, Peter Herbert, Michael Thieke, Matt Wilson, Michael Rodach, Juergen Kupke, Julian Arguelles, Gerald Cleaver, John Hebert, Sadiq Bey and many others.
Influences
ALL ADDITIONAL INFORMATION / A CD STORE / DOWNLOADABLE PHOTOS AND SHEET MUSIC / AN MP3 LIBRARY / MY DISCOGRAPHY / ALL MY BAND PROJECTS WITH INFOS
AND MUCH MORE CAN BE FOUND ON MY WEBSITE:
BUY ALL OF MY MUSIC ON CD OR DOWNLOAD (SINGLE TUNES FOR JUST 0.99 CENTS) AT: PHONECTOR.COM
born on nov. 2, 1957 in Bad Godesberg, saxophonist (tenor and soprano), bass clarinetist, flutist (concert and bass flutes) and composer Gebhard Ullmann studied in Hamburg and moved to Berlin in 1983.
Since then he has recorded close to 40 CDs as a leader or co-leader for prestiguous labels such as Soul Note, Leo Records, Between The Lines, 482 Music, Songlines Recordings, Intuition, CIMP, NotTwo Records and Clean Feed.
He is considered one of the leading personalities in today's Berlin and international scene and has received several awards for his work including the Julius Hemphill Composition Award ('99) in two categories, the Deutsche Phonoakademie Award ('83), one of the first SWF Jazz Awards ('87) and the nomination "Best Jazz CD Of The Year" by the German Schallplattenkritik for his CD "Tá Lam" in 1995. His CDs "Final Answer" (2002), "The Big Band Project (2004) and "New Basement Research" (2008) were listed in Downbeat Magazine among the best CDs of those years. In 2005 the Downbeat Critics Poll listed him for the first time in the category "Rising Star".
His CDs "Poetry In Motion" and "Don't Touch My Music Vol.1" were among the best CDs of 2008 in AllaboutJazz New York.
Since 1993 Ullmann is a recording artist for Black Saint / Soul Note and has been living in New York and Berlin since. He has toured with his music throughout Europe as well as Africa, Canada, New Zealand, the USA, South East Asia and Mexico and performed on most of the world's most prestigious jazz festivals.
THE PRESS
Mark Patel in One Final Note about Gebhard Ullmann's CD releases
" While it would take other artists years to arrive at one of these albums, Ullmann has seemingly done it simultaneously. His music is a jumping-off point for the listener to take his sounds and textures, his colors and shapes and form them into something new and original with each listening. It is a gift, and one to be cherished in this era of commercialism and cookie-cutter art. The most we can ask of the creative musician is what Ullmann delivers, and that is to ask more of us, to take the work further and create endless possibilities which help us to accentuate, rather than escape from, our existence."
Steven Loewy in Cadence Magazine
"Few improvising artists can boast the stream of creative ideas that seem to bubble from Gebhard Ullmann. Ullmann focuses on the fundamentals of improvised jazz: melody, sound, syncopation and technical excellence, but what makes his writing and playing so successful is his seemingly neverending innovative nature: without grasping for neoteric straws, Ullmann's performances are grounded in the past but plunge forward deliberately toward modernity."
Josef Engels in der Berliner Morgenpost
" Wie soll man das Material organisieren ? Täte man es dem Berliner Bassklarinettisten, Saxophonisten, Flötisten und Komponisten nach, dann wäre der Text auf den ersten Blick schwer lesbar. Da würden Wörter fallen wie Pistolenschüsse, da ginge die Syntax baden, da nähme sich die Grammatik eine kühne Auszeit. Aber mittendrin wäre vielleicht ein eigenartig sanftes Gesicht zu erkennen. oder die Buchstaben, die wirren, würden sich von oben betrachtet zu einer mathematischen Gleichung formen ... wenn man Ullmann's Musik hört geht es gewissermassen um die Evolution des Geräuschs, das sich über das Reiben von tonalen Gesteinsschichten in übereinandergelagerten Zählzeiten - hin zu Strukturen entwickelt, die sich mal als Tango, mal als Ballade, mal als irgendwas völlig Unbekanntes aus dem Urschlamm erheben
Neil Tesser in the Chicago Reader
" He has what critic Bill Shoemaker has called a 'razor-sharp diction' but he's also fluent in the smeary, loose-fitting phraseology that distinguishes the last quarter century of American reed work. He knows when to pull which tool out of the chest, and he uses the many devices at his disposal as means to an end, shaping his improvisations like a sculptor."
Chris Kelsey in JazzTimes
" Multireedist Gebhard Ullmann is a terrific improviser, adept on tenor and soprano saxes, bass flute and bass clarinet. He's also relentless, headed in several directions at once. 'The Big Band Project' ... the group is impressively tight when the occasion demands and it's exciting throughout. As the primary soloist, Ullmann excels. He is a font of energy and originality. 'Ballads And Related Objects' ... as all-horn bands go, it doesn't get much better than this. 'BassX3' ... Ullmann's bass flute work is quite attractive. He gets a big sound, heavy on the upper partials."
Udo Eberl in der Jazzthetik
" Gebhard Ullmann ist ein bemerkenswerter Musiker. Seit zwei Jahrzehnten spielt er nun schon international auf höchstem Niveau, und eigentlich sollte es bei jedem Jazzfan, kaum ist sein Name gefallen, klick machen. Doch Ullmann ist kein Vermarktungskünstler. Er ist ein Jazzmusiker durch und durch, ein Stilist, den man aus einer grossen Bläserschar wegen seines kantigen, gleichsam geerdeten Spiels schnell heraushören kann."
VIDEO 1:
'Conference Call' (Gebhard Ullmann, Michael Stevens, Joe Fonda, George Schuller) performing the George Schuller composition "Back To School" in Norway 2006. This tune can be found on the 2008 Clean Feed release "Poetry In Motion".
VIDEO 2:
The "Basement Research" quintet (Julian Argüelles, Gebhard Ullmann, Steve Swell, John Hebert, Gerald Cleaver) performing the Ullmann composition "Kreuzberg Park East" at DeWerf in Brugge, Belgium 2005. This tune has been released on the CDs "Kreuzberg Park East" (Soul Note 1999), "Live In Münster" (quartet) (NotTwo Records 2006) and "Don't Touch My Music. Vol 2" (quintet) (NotTwo Records 2009)
Hallo Gebhard, das war gestern ein Konzert, das ich nicht vergessen werde. BASSX3 mit Chris Dahlgren und jetzt mit Clayton Thomas ... einfach unglaublich. Gib Bescheid, wenn die Videos bei Youtube laufen. Dietmar (http://jazzimage.de)
Hey Gebhard! Morgen isses soweit! Ich spiel mit Paul Lovens, Johannes Bauer und DJ Illvibe a.k.a. Vincent von Schlippenbach an den Turntables im B-Flat und ich würd mich sehr freun Dich dort zu sehn...... Liebe Grüße, Louis
15.06. @ B-Flat, 21 Uhr
Rosenthaler Straße 13
U8-Weinmeister Straße
Thanks so much for the add–and your friendship. We enjoyed your music very much. Thanks for sharing it with all of us. It's a pleasure having you among our friends!
We hope you and your friends enjoy our music, too. We've just added four new compositions and two new blogs about Umano.
We wake up every morning and play the music of the new MySpace friends who have arrived at our site during the night. It occurred to us that these friends (you are among them) are almost universally positive, whether they be novices or legends, and without regard to their station in life or the country they occupy.
It also occurred to us that we couldn’t hold a verbal conversation with most of these friends, but we have bridged that gap by expressing our art honestly with each other.
We all have been filling the world with our music and art, in the hope that our messages of love and human understanding will have an impact on the world at large.
What a gift and what an opportunity we have received from this technology!
