13 Facts About Karl Berger

Karl Hans Berger was a German-American jazz pianist, vibraphonist, composer, and educator.

Karl Berger was a leading figure in jazz improvisation from the 1960s when he settled in the United States for life.

Karl Berger founded the educational Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, in 1972 with his wife and Ornette Coleman, to encourage international students to pursue their own ideas about music.

Karl Berger started playing classical piano when he was ten and worked in his early twenties at a club in his hometown.

Karl Berger learned modern jazz from visiting American musicians, such as Don Ellis and Leo Wright.

Karl Berger studied musicology and sociology at the Free University of Berlin, achieving a doctoral degree in 1963 with a dissertation on music in Soviet ideology.

Karl Berger worked as a member of Don Cherry's band in Paris.

Karl Berger worked further with Michael Bisio, Anthony Braxton and Baba Olatunji, as well as with Carla Bley, Bill Laswell John McLaughlin and Roswell Rudd, and with the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra, As musical arranger and conductor, he contributed to albums by Better Than Ezra, Buckethead, Jeff Buckley, Angelique Kidjo, Natalie Merchant and Rich Robinson, among others.

Karl Berger considered Coleman his friend and mentor, and like Coleman he was drawn to avant-garde jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation.

Karl Berger taught at the New School, and at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts from 1994 to 2003.

Karl Berger then led the department of music of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth to 2005.

Karl Berger remained active in music for the rest of his life, releasing his final album in the fall of 2022.

Karl Berger died at a hospital in Albany, New York, on April 9,2023, at age 88, from complications after surgery.