Recommended CDs

December 2005

The recordings of my new, second Quintet CD end of november went really fantastic! The CD will be released in February/March 2006. It contains 7 original compositions by myself and my nice band fellows did an awesome job again. Also the duo recording with Helmar Hill turned out to be great. By the way, you can download a little "sneak preview" (rough mix) of a quintet tune which I wrote for this new CD to remember Frank Rosolino. It´s called "Sad Frank" and you can download it on my Apple iDisk. Special thanks also go to Stingl-Klavier for providing the wonderful Fazioli 228 grand piano for this recording.

This month I will also do a very nice "Frank Rosolino Special" on the 15th at the Jazzland, starting @ 21:00. It features the rhyhthm section of my big band and Thomas Kugi on tenor sax. We will play compositions by and for Frank Rosolino. We had some great fun rehearsing this music already, so come and enjoy the music of one of the best jazz trombonists ever.

2 other very nice concerts I play this month are with SchwarzMarkt (great new CD coming soon...) on the 6th at the Jazzland, and with the Flip Philipp/Ed Partyka Dectet at Joe Zawinus´s Birdland on the 7th. The new CD "Something wrong with you?" of this fabulous ensemble is now also available at CD Baby. And of course, there is the annual Vienna Art Orchestra "Silvester/New Year Special" at the Porgy & Bess here in Vienna. Happy new year!

November 2005

As I am still touring with the VAO at the moment, so here just a few short things. Sadly the 3 gigs in Chile have been cancelled. But of course, the rest of the tour will be as planned. If you are interested in the latest VAO stories, then please also read the daily VAO tour diary by Ed Partyka.

On november 22nd I will do a very nice "Jay & Kai Tribute" together with Mario Vavti at the Jazzland. It starts at 21:00 there and we are very happy to have a great rhythm section with us on that evening, namely Oliver Kent (p), Gina Schwarz (b) and Mario Gonzi (dr). If you like J.J. Johnson or Kai Winding (or both ;-) or you are fan of trombones, this is an event you will love for sure. And again, I will play a gig with the JBBG and John Hollenbeck. Check out their latest CD "Joys & Desires" with John´s music.

End of november I will also record my 2nd CD with my own Quintet now. I rented a wonderful Fazioli grand piano for this occasion. And I will also record now the Duo program with pianist & great composer Helmar Hill. So, watch out for further news and release dates about that here.

October 2005

Yesterday, on october 3rd, I played a very nice gig with a great german salsa band called "Los Dos y Compañeros" at Vienna´s best latin club, the Floridita. They had a concert there and asked me to join them - and so I did ;-) This is a very interesting band as they are doing Salsa with german lyrics ... to be more precise with "bavarian" lyrics ... to be even more precise with "oberpfälzerischen" lyrics. This is really great fun, so check out their homepage.

Thanks to Paul Jimenenz I now also got some very nice photos (part1 & part2) of our very first concert with my new Big Band on 6th of june at the Jazzland. As you can see on the pictures, we really had a great start there and everybody was happy. By the way, the next concert with the Big Band there will be on 19th of january 2006. This month I am also working on some new compositions for the quintett, because we will record our second CD in november this year.

And of course, there is the big VAO tour in Europe and South America from mid october to mid of november which will keep me very busy for the rest of this month. Check out the newest CD release "Swing & Affairs" of the VAO and have a listen to the very special version of "Take the A train" featuring Adrian Mears & the VAO trombones. Also now download some free VAO ringtones ;-)

By the way, do you "skype" already? If not then please go to www.skype.com and download this great communication tool. With this very nice program (available for Mac, PC & Linux) you can call me for free via the internet. My skype username is "bachnerr" - you will need it for calling me with Skype.

September 2005 - please note the very nice photo painting of mine below done by Wilfried Misof ;-)

This september I will again play 2 concerts with my own Quintett. On the 18th in Fehring/Stmk (at the "Most & Jazz Festival") and on the 17th here in Vienna at the Jazzland. And of course, if you could not make it last time, on the 8th we will play again with my new Big Band featuring Karin Bachner on vocals at the Jazzland. Come and enjoy original compositions & arrangements of mine and also some very nice & rare Ella Fitzgerald charts. Last time it was really packed there and they even had to send home about 20 people. So, maybe try to be there a littler earlier.

Also please note the very nice MM Jazzfestival in St. Pölten from 14th to 18th this month, initiated by Marianne Mendt. This festival features mostly austrian musicians and I will play there with SchwarzMarkt, the UAJO, Werner Feldgrill, with Marianne Mendt herself and I will also be in the "support band" for the "youngsters". For more information please have a look at the festival program. At the beginning of this month we already had a very nice open air gig in Hollabrun with the Groovehunters and I again played a concert with the band of the brasilian singer & guitar player Yta Moreno. Later this month we will finish the recordings with SchwarzMarkt and then there is also another nice gig with the Jazz Big Band Graz.

August 2005

In the last days I was really busy rehearsing, travelling, playing, recording, organizing and fighting taxes ;-) We had a great concert with the UAJO with the Friedrich Gulda Special at the Gmundner Festwochen featuring Reinhard Micko & Willi Resetarits. On this very nice festival we will also play a concert this month with Heavy Tuba on 16th. We will perform there the music of our latest CD "Pictures at an Exhibition" and some other HT "hits."

A lot of other things also happened this month already. Now I also got a nice distributor in the United States for my new Quintett CD "Heart Disc". So, US customers now easily can purchase my new CD online in the states. But that´s not all yet. The CD has also just been deliverd to the Apple iTunes Musicstore, so that you very soon can legally buy and download the whole album for the price of $6,93 there. That´s really cool, eh? Available in a lot of different countries, including Australia, Canada & even in Japan ;-)

By the way, the next concert with my Quintett will be on August 12th (um 20:00 Uhr) at the Schlosshof in Sierning near Steyr in Upper Austria. This will be the only concert in Upper Austria for this year, so don´t miss it. We also finished the recordings for the new CD "Swing & Affairs" with the VAO now and the new CD of the JBBG "Joys & desires" featuring John Hollenbeck and his music is also now available in the stores. Oh yes, and we also now finally finished the recordings of the new program "101 Years Glen Miller" with the UAJO arranged by the great Michael Gibbs. Hear the classic Miller tunes in refreshing & exciting new arrangements.

Furthermore I also did some playing & arranging for the new Quartett CD recording of my wife Karin Bachner. If you want to hear her new quartett live, then please come to the Jazzland here in Vienna on August 29th. I will be there too.

July 2005

I just returned from a very nice weekend trip to Finland to perform at the Imatra Big Band Festival with the extraordinary band Heavy Tuba. We really had a great stay there and I also had the chance to meet my finish friend Antti Rissanen again, finally ;-) We first met in 2000 in New York City when we both studied at the New School University with Conrad Herwig. He is not only a great trombonist and "Kapellmeister", but also an awesome composer. So, please have a look on Antti´s Homepage where you can order CD´s and some of his compositions, ie. for Big Band.

This month we also will rehearse and record again a new program called "Swing & Affairs" with the Vienna Art Orchestra. On 16th and 17th we will perform this program at the Porgy & Bess here in Vienna as a part of the Jazz Festival Vienna. Read more about that in the VAO Summer 2005 Recording Diary. At this festival we will also play with the new Quintett SchwarzMarkt lead by bassist Gina Schwarz & drummer Klemens Marktl. This is really a remarkable new band and with this band we will play on the festival here in Vienna on the 13th of july at the Reigen.

At the moment I am also thrilled by a new technology called "Podcasting" (german or english info). This is really great fun and you can get some very special radio shows from the internet with ease, take them away and listen to them at any time and at any place on your iPod or computer. Download iTunes Version 4.9 or higher to do this. One very special example here is "The C64 Take-away podcast" (direct link to iTunes or Podcast Website). For me this one really brings back some great C64-teen-memory.

June 2005

It´s big band time now, finally :-) Please come and see the very first concert of my NEW BIG BAND on June 6th @ 21:00 at the Jazzland here in Vienna. We will play original compositions & arrangements of mine and also some wonderful & very rare original charts of Ella Fitzgerald featuring my wife Karin Bachner on vocals. We will play songs which Ella performed with Nelson Riddle, Count Basie, Frank Devol and others. I also wrote a nice arrangement of the Ella version of "Lullaby of Broadway" featuring the rhythm section, vocal & 5 trombones! When can you hear something like that at the Jazzland, eh?
Update: We really had a great start with the first concert of my Big Band yesterday. The Jazzland was "packed" & they even had to send back home about 20 people, because the place was absolutely sold out! The band was burning and everyone was happy. Therefore we will play again there with the Big Band on September 8th. And Again, I will also write & bring some new arrangements. If you could not make it to the Big Band yesterday, you will have another chance to hear this wonderful band. So, be there :-)

In June I will again play with the Jazz Big Band Graz, we will record the new program with the Flip Philipp/Ed Partyka Dectet, I will play a concert with the brazilian singer & guitarist Yta Moreno on 23rd at the Tunnel and I will also play my first gig with Marcus Ratka´s "Chameleon Changes" on 17th at the Porgy. I will write a new "groovy" composition for Heavy Tuba for our gigs in Finland on beginning of July and we are also rehearsing quite a lot with Schwarzmarkt for the 2nd part of our CD recording and our first big concerts at the Jazzfestivals in Vienna & St. Pölten. Also please note the new Red Octopus Online Shop. Thankfully they always feature austrian jazz musicians too.

One quick note for the Apple OS X users here: If you are already using Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" then maybe download these nice widgets for the Dashboard. First, the Leo translation widget - it´s the best. Second, also have a look at the little Calvin & Hobbes Widget for your daily entertainment. I had so much fun with the story about the "girls club" in the last days ;-)

May 2005

This month you willl have the last chance to hear the Flip Philipp/Ed Partyka in the Porgy & Bess for this stage band series. In june we are also going to record this music, so watch out for the upcoming CD too. On may 13th I will play a nice gig with "Tropicolumbia" by Lois Zuniga at 17:00 - at the Columbusplatz here in vienna. This is a very nice band, playing columbian traditional music (Cumbia) and other latin styles. This will be very "danceable" too ,-)

At the moment I am also practising quite a lot again. Especially I am focusing on my embochure and general trombone technique now. I think it´s necessary to "recheck" this from time to time. As I don´t have that much concerts this month I am a experimenting, how I can get my trombone to sound a little nicer ;-) And I am also preparing and writing new music for the Quintet and also some charts for the Big Band. If you are free on june 6th, then please come to see our very first concert of my new Big Band at june 6th @ 21:00 at the Jazzland.

Hier noch etwas off-topic, aber sicherlich nicht minder interessant. Das aktuelle Angebot von Büchern des neuen Papst Benedikt XVI - Josef Ratzinger. Für deutschsprachige Leser natürlich besonders interessant, da man wohl nur äusserst selten diese einmalige Gelegenheit bekommt, Bücher eines aktuellen Papstes einfach im Original lesen zu können. Wer die zukünftigen Entscheidungen und Aussagen des neuen Papstes besser verstehen möchte, der findet hier wertvolle HIntergrundinformationen aus erster Hand.

April 2005

April is a very nice month, not only because I do have my birthday in april :-) It´s getting nice and sunny outside again and also the "frequency of jazz gigs" is noticeably higher than in february and march. At the moment I am also doing section rehearsals with the trombone section of the "Upper Austrian Youth Jazz Orchestra" (OÖJJO). This is really a great educational project, and of course, the trombones of this band are top ;-) Visit the Homepage of the OÖJJO for further information and concert dates in may, June and July.

This month I also play again with the Jazz Big Band Graz. We will perform the new programm of the CD "Joys & Desires" by the great New York based drummer and composer John Hollenbeck. Also have a look at the Website of the Jazz Big Band Graz for concert dates & audio examples. And, if you haven´t heard yet, come and enjoy the Flip Philipp/Ed Partyka Dectet on april 18th at the Porgy & Bess.This is in a way a very unique band, because the arrangers (Flip, Ed, Klaus Gesing & myself) are writing faster than the band is able to rehearse ;-)

I did expect that it won´t be easy to get some original Ella Fitzgerald arrangements for the first concert of my new Big Band on june 6th at the Jazzland. And I was right, because they are kind of "locked" in the Library of Congress in Washington. But finally we managed to get some arrangements in the US, in London and here in Austria. Additionally I also have some arrangements transcribed by Martin Reiter and Helmar Hill especially for this evening. Recently I also found a big band arrangement of "Afternoon in Paris" which I wrote some years ago. I had really forgotten it´s existence already. So, don´t miss this very special concert ;-)

By the way, if you have any comments to the design or the functionalitiy of this website then please send me your feedback or leave a short message in my guestbook! Do all audio files and videos work on your computer? If not, then please also tell me which O(perating) S(ystem) and which browser you are using. Thanks!

March 2005

Let´s start this month with some concert tips. On 7th of march Robin Eubanks plays a concert in the Porgy & Bess here in Vienna and on 18th you can also hear there The Brussels Jazz Orchestra conducted by Maria Schneider. A "very special concert" will also be on 2nd of march, again in the Porgy. It´s the public alto saxophone audition for the Vienna Art Orchestra. This for sure will be an exciting evening, at least for the candidates ;-)

Next topic - Instruments. As saxophones for instance get more and more expensive, trombones seem to get cheaper. Therefore yesterday I bought an new trombone, namely a Conn 52H, because I didnt´t have a bone with an F attachement at the moment. The guys at CITY MUSIC made me such a nice price, so that I couldn´t resist to buy this horn. It´s a really great trombone for a sensational prize. If you get hands on it - try it.

On 20th of march we again play with the Flip Philipp Dectet at the Porgy. If you haven´t heard this band yet then come and enjoy this great ensemble, Flip and Ed´s "charming" announcements. On the following days we will also go into the studio and record this music. More concerts with my own Quintet will be in the second half of this year. At the moment I am also preparing the music (and the musicians ;-) for the new Big Band program for our premier concert on June 6th at the Jazzland.

At Last, I am still updating & expanding this website as you might have noticed already. Recent changes and additions this time mainly happend in the lower part of the website. One very nice and new thing you can find on the contact page. I added my visitcard as a downloadable ".vcf file" there for you. That means, you just click on the VCard icon on this page, and then my "VCard" will be downloaded to your computer and added to your own Adressbook (Outlook, Entourage) automatically. You dont´t have to type anything. That´s really very cool. I haven´t tested it on a PC yet, but it works fine on our Macs :-)

February 2005

Since beginning of this month a lot of nice musical things happened already. First of all, today we ended the recordings for a exciting new band lead by bassist Gina Schwarz and drummer Klemens Marktl, probably called "Schwarzmarkt". This new quintet also includes my favorite piano player Reinhard Micko and my UAJO fellow Manfred Paul Weinberger on trumpet and flugelhorn. Expect some modern & burning jazz tunes, odd meter adventures, beautiful colors and a lot more :-)

Second, some great news for all the big band enthusiasts out there: finally I also founded my own, new Big Band. If you want to participate and help with the birth of this new big band, then come and see us on our very first concert on June 6th at the Jazzland in Vienna, starting at 9pm. The program played on that evening will include original big band charts of mine and we also plan to perform some original Ella Fitzgerald big band charts! Of course I will also write some new stuff especially for this evening. As a special guest on that evening you will hear my lovely wife Karin Bachner on vocals. So, for all the lovers of Ella, this will be for sure an event not to miss!

From february 10th to 16th we are on tour with the UAJO playing a tribute to "101 Years of Glenn Miller" conducted an arranged by the great Michael Gibbs. If you want to hear the very popular songs of the Glenn Miller band in refreshing new anrrangements, then you will be perfectly right there on of our concerts on this tour.

And, there is another new band which I also just joined. "Chameleon Changes" ist the name of a new Jazz Octet lead by guitarist Marcus Ratka. Very exciting too, with a quite unususal "horn section" comprised of trumpet, sax, trombone and harp.

January 2005

Welcome to 2005! With the VAO we celebrated this new year musically already with 4 concerts, so I am really prepared now for all upcoming events :-) Most important for me this month of course is the presentation concert of my new CD "Heart Disc" on 23rd of january in the Porgy & Bess in Vienna. The concert will start at 8 pm and CD´s will be sold for a special price on this evening! If you would like to have a nice (and maybe non-smoking) seat it´s a good advise to reserve tickets and seats in advance under 01/512 88 11. For this special concert I also invited 2 guests and "rising stars" of the austrian jazz scene. So don´t miss this exciting evening!

Traditionally January is a month with not so many jazz gigs, therefore I am focusing a little more on writing. For instance a new composition for the next concert with the Flip Philipp & Ed Partyka Dectet on february 14th also in the Porgy & Bess. You will hear an arrangement of mine of one of Flip´s tunes and probably also a new composition of mine especially written for this great ensemble. Sadly I won´t be able to play myself on this evening because I am touring with my "Home Big Band", the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra. We will celebrate "101 Years Glen Miller" with very interesting arrangements from and with the great british arranger Michael Gibbs.

On January 26th there will be the CD presentation concert with the new CD "Leche Condensada" of the salsa band Sanmera at the Posthof in Linz. This concerts starts at 8 pm and don´t forget to bring your dancing shoes ;-)

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