Martin Kunzler

Martin Kunzler (born 29 April 1947) is a German jazz bassist and music journalist. He gained particular fame through his rororo Jazz-Lexikon published by Rowohlt Verlag, which is now considered the standard German-language work on this musical genre.

Life

Kunzler was born in Lörrach as the youngest of six siblings and went to the Hans-Thoma-Gymnasium Lörrach [de] and the Wirtschaftsgymnasium . From 1960, he took double bass lessons with Chester Gill, and from 1964 he studied double bass with Michel Delannois as well as music theory with Gerd Watkinson in Basel. After his marriage and the birth of his son Claudio, Kunzler completed a traineeship as newspaper editor at the Verlagshaus Jaumann [de] in Lörrach from 1966 to 1968, after which he was editor and feature correspondent of the Schwarzwälder Bote until 1969. In 1967/68, he also held a teaching position at the Pädagogische Hochschule Lörrach in the subjects Double Bass and Workshop for Neue Musik.

Kunzler was also active in

Kunzler also worked as a producer, not in jazz but in the classical field (and there mainly as a specialist for modern and early music). As an editor, he has designed many projects in this field; important permanent partners were Carl Orff, Gary Bertini, Ireneu Segarra i Malla [de] and Peter Michael Hamel.

After BASF's withdrawal from the music business in 1976, he worked as a freelancer for record companies such as

Bellaphon, WDR, ORF and the Deutsche Welle, Schott Music and newspapers or magazines such as the Neue Musikzeitung (nmz, Bosse Verlag), Das Orchester, Melos, Musica, Musik und Bildung, Fonoforum, Stereo, Disk (Holland), the Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt [de], numerous daily newspapers and popular magazines up to Playboy

.

In 1977 he joined the

Roche Diagnostics

), but retained his freelance activities as author and producer. From 1980 onwards, his work for the first edition of the Rowohlt-Jazzlexikon moved into the foreground. It was published in 1988, followed by various supplemented or unchanged new editions and a completely revised new version in 2002.

Kunzler also collaborates to the

Bavarian Academy of Sciences. He has also been active in the field of museums, including essayistic contributions for exhibition catalogues and, in 2002, marketing for a major Jean Tinguely retrospective at the Kunsthalle Mannheim

.

Work

• Gerettet auf dem Steinway-Flügel. Bernhard Conz über Conz und andere. Busse Verlag, Herford 1971.
• Jazz-Lexikon.[2] Extended new edition Rowohlt, Reinbek 2002 (digitally available via Directmedia Publishing Berlin 2006).

1. A–L.
   ISBN 3-499-16512-0
   .
2. M–Z.
   ISBN 3-499-16513-9
   .

• Wir und wie wir wohnen.
  ISBN 978-3-00-059153-2

References

1. ^ Kunzler on rowohlt.de
2. ^ Jazz-Lexikon on WorldCat
3. ^ Wir & wie wir wohnen on WorldCat

External links

• Literature by and about Martin Kunzler in the German National Library catalogue