The Oimels

Wolfgang Dauner, one of the few internationally renowned German jazz musicians, was born in Stuttgart on Dec. 30, 1935. Oddly enough, having learnt to play the piano as a child, he eventually graduated from the conservatory in Stuttgart with a major in 'trumpet'. Yet, it is the piano that remains his great love. He fancied contemporary jazz and, in 1963, founded his first own band: The Wolfgang Dauner Trio, with Eberhard Weber playing the bass and Fred Braceful on the drums. He would continue playing with these musicians well into the 1970ies. Dauner is extremely important with regard to modern jazz and jazz rock in Germany, and his efforts can be compared to the spade work Miles Davis did for jazz and jazz rock in the USA.

Having participated in various jazz bands in the early 1960ies, Dauner was already a jazz veteran before he founded his own band. His first albums belong to the genre of experimental modern jazz, influenced by Bill Evans, Steve Lacy, Sun Ra etc. The albums he published until 1969 will primarily appeal to 'pure' jazz fans.

The acme of psychedelic music in 1968/69 created new possibilities. Dauner and several other excellent young jazz musicians were sick of the jazz of the time turning increasingly cliche, and decided to disregard all existing rules. They did to jazz what Faust was going to do to rock music a couple of years later. A first result was the extraordinary album FUR, released in the summer of 1969, which can hardly be called jazz, but is much rather an experiment aimed at overcoming limitations. Musical revolution for its own sake. This was also expressed in the cover notes, where the musicians explained what the album was about, e.g. the record had to be played inside out and was going to destroy itself when played.

The Oimels, the album the Wolfgang Dauner Quintet presented to their fans in early 1970, was even more radical than the previous productions. Here, Wolfgang Dauner and his band surprised as a psychedelic-jazz-pop-band. To top it all, the album con-tained a version of the Beatles’ title 'A Day in The Life' of the Sgt. Pepper’s album, along with several other more or less 'weird' songs that remind one of pop or beat with a pinch of jazz and ethnic sounds. Apart from the distorted guitar, sitar sounds and other freak-outs so beloved by fans of psychedelic music, the five musicians really pulled out all the stops in order to demonstrate their idea of what psychedelic pop had to sound like. An extraordinary album in every respect. 1969 and 1970 were a musical Fountain of Youth for Wolfgang Dauner and his alternating band members. They published eight albums on different labels and under various band names (Wolfgang Dauner Quintet, Wolfgang Dauner or Et Cetera). For progressive rock enthusiasts we particularly recommend the albums RISCHKAS’S SOUL (recorded in 1969, published on Brain in 1972), and ET CETERA (1971 on Global). Fans of progressive rock will also love the LP KNIRSCH (with participation of Jon Hise-mann and Larry Coryell) published on BASF/MPS in 1972, and the 1973 live double album also published on BASF/MPS under the band name ET CETERA. Readers of the Sounds magazine voted Dauner musician of the year 1972. In 1971 he had won the 'star of the year' award by the Munchner Abendzeitung, and before that, in 1969, he had been appointed head of the radio-jazz-group Stuttgart. It is not an exaggeration to call Dauner one of the most productive and versatile musicians, particularly with regard to the subsequent years. During the 1970ies and 1980ies he was involved in innumerable projects, both his own and as guest musician (between 1970 and 1990 he participated in no less than 49 record productions). Apart from the above mentioned productions he was keyboarder with the 'New Violin Summit', played with the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, worked with Dieter Suverkrup and Konstantin Wecker, whose producer and musical director he became in 1986, the Kolbe-Illenberger duo, Charlie Mariano, Albert Mangelsdorff and many others. His discography is so vast it would go beyond the scope of this booklet. In 1977 he co-founded Mood records, and recently, in 2001, was responsible for three record productions. In addition to this he did commissioned compositions for various symphony orchestras, composed the chamber opera 'Die verwachsene Froschhaut' for the State Theatre Stuttgart, created the laser show music for Germany’s cultural contribution to the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992, as well as the world championship fanfare and a composition for the awards ceremony of the athletics world championship in Stuttgart in 1993. In 1999 he toured Chicago, New Orleans and the Bahamas with the German Allstars-Old-Friends (K. Doldinger, A. Mangelsdorff, M. Schoof, W. Haffner and E. Weber). In 2004 the tour was continued with concerts in Southern America. A typical feature of Wolfgang Dauner’s musical production is that he doesn’t make a distinction between serious and light music. Although always open for any kind of musical influence, he nonetheless kept his distinctive Wolfgang-Dauner style, which can be easily spotted in the many soundtracks he composed in the course of his creative work. His compositions for TV- and film adorned Courths-Mahler productions, the TV series about defence lawyer Abel and even a production by the animal film maker Horst Stern (Remarks on butterflies), etc.