Rolf Kühn, German clarinetist and composer, is dead

Born in Cologne on September 29, 1929, clarinettist Rolf Kühn died in Berlin on Thursday August 18 following a stupid fall. At 92, he was in excellent health. His career and his discography, in the United States as in Germany, are more than impressive, even if, in France, he does not appear, in particular in the Jazz Dictionary (“Books”, Robert Laffont, 1994), that through the article devoted to his brother, fifteen years younger than him – the famous pianist (and saxophonist) Joachim Kuhn (Leipzig, 1944).

Both have ” quits “ Leipzig – city, at the time of the Wall, of East Germany. Rolf, in May 1956, went to New York, where he settled for six years. Already well known as a saxophonist in his country, “he made a name for himself in swing jazz and East Coast bop circles, won numerous awards and performed, among others, at the Newport Festival and in major clubs in New York and Chicago” : information signed Marc Sarrazy, musician and biographer of the brother in Joachim Kuhn. A history of modern jazz (Editions Syllepsis, 2003).

Rolf Kühn conducts the Hamburg Television Orchestra between 1962 and 1968

After a season with Tommy Dorsey, then Benny Goodman, whose orchestra he conducted when the illustrious leader was absent, Rolf Kühn recorded his first album, Be My Guest (Panorama, 1960), with, among others, Jim Hall (guitar) and two bassists: George Duvivier and Henry Grimes. Connoisseurs and lovers of modernity will appreciate.

Return to Germany in 1961: he conducts the Hamburg Television Orchestra (1962-1968). International tours with the trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff and the German All Stars, inviting Friedrich Gulda along the way… October 1962, a very noticed new album with the saxophonist Klaus Doldinger. In 1964, he recorded with his brother Joachim (plus Michal Urbaniak, sax) a landmark album, Solarius (Amiga): “Long and rich musical collaboration which will span nearly sixty years, the blossoming of modal jazz in East Germany” (Sarrazy).

Modern biases

In addition to their high-level classical training, the two brothers share and share, because success is there, their resolutely modern biases, as evidenced by their crowned albums, in 1965, by Re-Union in Berlin. Rolf composes for theatre, cinema or successful TV series, Derrick understood, going as well towards “easy listening” that towards “a funky jazz with padded sounds”says Sarrazy (City Calling1974).

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