Buschi Niebergall

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Buschi Niebergall (1938 to 1990) was a German free jazz musician. His first name was Hans-Helmut, and towards the end of his life friends called him Johannes. He was born in Marburg into an academic family: his father was a professor of theology and for a time rector of the university. Niebergall began studying medicine, but stopped when he got to know other musicians as an acoustic guitarist.

Music and breakthrough

As a bassist he was a co-founder of some of the first and most influential free jazz groups in Germany, in the mid-1960s. Examples are Gunter Hampel's Heartplants quintet and Voices, by the quintet of Manfred Schoof, which belong to an independent European development of free jazz. From 1966 he was a member of the Globe Unity Orchestra. He worked with many musicians who improvised freely, among them Peter Brötzmann, Don Cherry, Alfred Harth, Evan Parker, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Irène Schweizer and John Tchicai. In the early 1970s he played in Albert Mangelsdorff's quartets and quintets. Releases under his own name include Open in 1979 and Ballade an der Ruhr in 1980.

Influence

After 1980 he chose a withdrawn life in Frankfurt, apart from the occasional project involving jazz and poetry. Niebergall shows that German jazz in the 1960s found a free sound of its own that did not copy what came from America.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1979Open
• 1980Ballade an der Ruhr

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• After Hours: Session 3^NL Reader