Peter Herbolzheimer

Did You Know?

• Brass players in his band included Art Farmer, Dusko Goykovich, and Palle Mikkelborg.
• The rhythm section featured Dieter Reith, Philip Catherine, and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.

Biography

Peter Herbolzheimer was born in Bucharest, Romania, to a Romanian mother and a German father. In 1951, his family left Communist Romania and settled in West Germany. Two years later, he moved to the United States, attending Highland Park High School in Michigan and graduating in 1954. During his time there, he sang in choral groups, played in the orchestra, and performed guitar in Detroit bands. He returned to Germany in 1957, where he started playing valve trombone in open mic groups. After a subsequent attempt to go back to Michigan, his visa was refused. He then spent a year studying at the Nuremberg Conservatory. During the 1960s, he performed with the Nuremberg radio dance orchestra and with Bert Kämpfert’s orchestra. In 1968, he joined the pit orchestra of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, directed by Hans Koller. The following year, he founded his own big band, Rhythm Combination and Brass, writing most of its arrangements. In the late 1970s, the band toured widely with a jazz gala program featuring guest stars like Esther Phillips, Stan Getz, Nat Adderley, Gerry Mulligan, Toots Thielemans, Clark Terry, and Albert Mangelsdorff. Later, the band performed on concert tours, television shows, and at jazz festivals. In 1972, Herbolzheimer composed music for the Edelhagen Band’s opening ceremony at the Munich Olympic Games. In 1974, his band entered an annual television competition in Knokke, Belgium, winning the Golden Swan Award. That same year, he also won the International Jazz Composers Competition in Monaco. His arrangements are known for blending swing, Latin music, and rock. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he led his own orchestra for German television networks, working with guest musicians including Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Sammy Davis Jr., Dizzy Gillespie, and Al Jarreau. From 1987 to 2006, he served as musical director of Germany’s national youth jazz orchestra, the Bundes Jazz Orchester, and regularly conducted workshops and clinics for big band jazz. In 2007, he was appointed music director, arranger, and conductor of the European Jazz Band, which toured across Europe until 2009. Herbolzheimer died on 27 March 2010 at age 74 in his hometown of Cologne, Germany.