Gebhard Ullmann

Gebhard Ullmann

Ullmann at Jazz Club Unterfahrt, Munich 2013
Background information
Born (1957-11-02) November 2, 1957
Germany
Genres Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician
Instruments Saxophone, Flutes, Bass clarinet
Website www.gebhard-ullmann.com

Gebhard Ullmann (born November 2, 1957) is a German jazz musician and composer.

Career

At the age of six, Ullmann started to play the recorder and later classical flute. Since 1976 he studied a.o. with Herb Geller and Dave Liebman and at the University of Hamburg flute and saxophone. He also studied medicine from 1976 – 1982. During this time he worked with guitarist Andreas Willers and a trio with keyboards and vocals.

Since 1983 he has been living in Berlin, although he lived in both Berlin and New York City from 1999 to 2011. With Willers he started the quartet Out To Lunch in 1983 (later with Enrico Rava), the project Minimal Kidds (with Niko Schäuble, Trilok Gurtu, Glen Moore) and different trios with Steve Argüelles, Marvin Smitty Smith and Phil Haynes.

In 1991 he began his project Tá Lam (up to ten woodwinds plus accordion) that toured worldwide and released 4 CDs that made it to the top-of-the-year lists in many magazines all over the world including a five star review by John Ephland in Down Beat. 1993 Soul Note founder Giovanni Bonandrini invited him to start his project Basement Research in NYC. Originally a quartet with Ellery Eskelin (later Tony Malaby), Drew Gress and Phil Haynes, later it became a quintet with Steve Swell, Julian Argüelles, John Hebert (later Pascal Niggenkemper) and Gerald Cleaver and released 7 CDs.

Some of the other projects Ullmann lead or co-lead and composed music for are: The Berlin-based Clarinet Trio (with Jürgen Kupke, Michael Thieke) the transatlantic quartet Conference Call (with Michael Jefry Stevens, Joe Fonda, Matt Wilson, later Han Bennink and George Schuller) the trio BassX3 (with bassists Chris Dahlgren and Clayton Thomas plus Ullmann on bassflute and bassclarinet) his co-lead projects with Steve Swell The Ullmann/Swell 4 (with Hill Greene and Barry Altschul) and The Chicago Plan (with Fred Lonberg-Holm and Michael Zerang) the French/German Double Trio de Clarinets (the Clarinet Trio plus Jean-Marc Foltz, Sylvain Kassap and Armand Angster) the Berlin-based quartet GULF of Berlin, the duo with vocalist Almut Kühne and the electro/acoustic Trio das Kondensat (with Oli Potratz and Eric Schaefer). For the last two as well as his new solo program he worked for the first time with sampling and live looping devices.

In 2015 Ullmann released his 50th CD as a leader or co-leader. As a sideman he works in the regular quartet of New York guitarist Scott DuBois, in the orchestras of Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii, the German pianist Hannes Zerbe and the Belgian pianist Bram de Looze. He was a member of projects such as The Silent Jazz Ensemble, Chris Dahlgren’s Lexicon, the Berlin-based Die Elefanten (produced by Teo Macero), Günter Lenz’s Springtime and many others.

He has also worked with Paul Bley, Keith Tippett, Frank Gratkowski, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowski, the Ensemble Les Percussions de Guinée, William Parker, Herb Robertson, Bob Moses, Bobby Previte, Lauren Newton, Andrew Cyrille, Sylvie Courvoisier, Willem Breuker, Rita Marcotulli, Dieter Glawischnig, Tom Rainey, Ivo Papazov, Sergei Starostin, Alexey Kruglov, Beñat Achiary, Frank Möbus and the actor Otto Sander.

Ullmann received the Julius Hemphill Composition Award (1999) in two categories, one of the first SWR Jazz Awards (together with Andreas Willers in 1987) The German Phonoacademy Award (1983) many awards by the city of Berlin including the first Berlin Jazz Award in 2017.[1] The second CD of his Tá Lam project was nominated best CD of the year by the German Schallplattenkritik and many of his CDs made the best-of-the-year list in magazines and newspapers worldwide including the New York City Jazz Record and the Down Beat magazine (Final Answer 2002, The Bigband Project 2004, New Basement Research 2006, News? No News 2010, Tá Lam 11 – Mingus! 2011, Hat And Shoes 2015).[2] The CD Transatlantic received the Choc of the French Jazz Magazine. Since 2005 Ullmann is listed in the Down Beat critics poll, lately in several categories.[3]

Discography

Leader/co-leader albums

Sideman albums

References

  1. ↑ Gebhard Ullmann erhält den ersten Jazzpreis Berlin (in German)
  2. ↑ Gebhard Ullmann At 50: A Career Retrospective
  3. ↑ Down Beat Annual Critics Poll 2016
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