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Manfred Schoof

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

Manfred Schoof is a German jazz trumpeter, born in Magdeburg in 1936. He studied music in Kassel and in Cologne, where the composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann and the big band leader Kurt Edelhagen were among his teachers. He also played flugelhorn and cornet. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he played with the drummer Jaki Liebezeit, the later co-founder of the krautrock band Can.

Music and breakthrough

In the 1960s he started a free jazz group with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Gerd Dudek, which became the basis of the Manfred Schoof Orchestra. His first sextet of his own came in 1965. He sought a blend of composition and improvisation and played with, among others, Albert Mangelsdorff, Peter Brötzmann, Irene Schweizer, Kenny Clarke and the Globe Unity Orchestra. From 1969 to 1971 he played in George Russell's orchestra. Albums from that time are Jazz Meets India from 1967 and European Echoes from 1969. His group took part in performances of Die Soldaten, Zimmermann's opera, and he wrote classical music for the Berliner Philharmoniker. Later came records with Mal Waldron in 1980, Reflections in 1983 and Timebreaker in 1990.

Influence

Since 1990 he has been a professor in Cologne and since 2007 chairman of the Union Deutscher Jazzmusiker. Schoof belongs to the first generation of German free jazz, which sought a European sound of its own alongside the American one.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to European Echoes and notice how the horns and percussion play freely around one another and yet follow a shared line.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists