Horst Fischer

oj · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 4:57 am Post subject:

No post on TH about this great German player, Horst Fischer (1930 - 1986)?

Why?

He was compared to Maynard.
More info here:

http://www.magictrumpet.de/

(some great sound clips, etc.)

Ole

JoeWats · Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:11 am Post subject:

OJ,

I've heard of him ... also I listened to some of his audio clips. Horst was AWESOME!

I agree, he was much like Maynard Ferguson. If I could find his music at stores here in the USA
I would just at the chance to buy some of his CDs.

Joe

Levermann · Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 11:03 am Post subject:

Yes, Fischer got some chops. He was an incredible trumpet player. Buthe used to play a lot of tasteless stuff.
He grew up in Germany, not a good place then to develop a Jazz sound.
So he got big with muzak.
I read somewhere he played a small, shallow Doppelkessel ( double cup ???) mp.
But to be honest, in my opinion Maynard also blows a lot of tasteless stuff. So do Arturo and Faddis.
Maybe high blowing is going to wreck some important but very tiny regions in our brain matter ?
Just a thought.

blasticore · Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 11:51 am Post subject:

For those interested, there's a Horst Fischer page on http://www.trumpetstuff.com .

_________________
Chris King
http://www.cktrumpet.com
http://www.ckbrassworks.com

JohnBennett · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 10:14 am Post subject:

Hi OJ,

Yes, I do remember that great player but had not thought of his name for MANY years until your posting.

'Way back in the dark ages when I was a college student (late 1950's-60's) I remember hearing one of his records made with the Erwin Lehn orchestra. It was "Ciribiribin" (the old Harry James standard) and Horst just played the hell out of it. He had great chops and facility in the upper register with a really bright well-centered sound....outstanding player!

I found a copy of that recording on 45 rpm (remember those?) and nearly wore it out. I hadn't listened to it tho in all these years because most newer record players nowadays can't play that speed. The other side was "Cocktail Boogie." Horst and the band sounded excellent.

Somone mentioned that he had recorded a lot of tasteless things but many bands did the same thing in those days. That was part of being a fulltime working studio musician...you may not have always liked what you played but to earn the paycheck you did it. It's the same way today.

Horst was another one of those fine players that booze got the best of, unfortunately.

John

p.s. some more trivia about big band "gimmicks": Big bands, like the one mentioned above and many others tried to have gimmicks that would make their band sound different from all the others. They would record all sorts of "new" sounds and gimmicks and hope that they would have a hit with the records. Sometimes it turned out good, sometimes it didn't. They all did it...Les Brown, Perez Prado, Stan Kenton, Les & Larry Elgart, Tommy Dorsey. Les Brown had a dozen charts that sounded a lot like "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm"...(a terrific big band chart)...Prado had several that sounded like "Cherry Pink"....Dorsey had quite a few that followed the format of some of his other hits. It was common. Not all bandleaders were jazz purists like Miles Davis....who didn't care if his record was a hit or not...he wanted to record for its jazz value. That is a good value to have but it doesn't pay the bills.

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MH · New Member Joined: 16 Nov 2003 Posts: 1

hi,
for me as the founder of the tribute site to horst fischer "www.magictrumpet.de" iTs great that the name horst fischer is now discussed in trumpet forums. for many years he has been ignored, because of his life of scandals and his death "as a beggar at the side of a road". he was indeed a lead trumpet player with a unique talent.he always worked as lead player in jazz orchestras while making recordings liKe horst fischer and his golden trumpet, but even on this records you hear his uncomparable sound even in the upper register. if you got some questions about hf just ask.

JohnBennett · Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2003 9:43 am Post subject:

Hi MH,

I've tried to locate an album or two of Horst's...especially the "Magic Trumpet" one. Do you have any suggestions where to find one? I've tried several of the vintage record places with no luck. Thanks for any help.

John

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Kanne · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 7:30 pm Post subject:

The book from Friedel Keim - Das Trompeter-Taschenbuch, 423 p, ISBN: 3-254-08377-6,
contains also a section on Horst Fischer, who was famous for his terrific sound with natural vibrato.

http://www.schott-international.com/shop/php/Proxy.php?purl=/ssh/products/show,88748.html

saltpot · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 11:28 am Post subject:

Do you know who his influeneces are????

His sound is very like harry james' .....but not quite as bright
also his vibrato is very like james' as well .....but smoother

were did this school of trumpeting originate from??? ---- most of the current british big band trumpeters seem to go for that sound..... e.g. the Syd Lawrence Orchestra trumpet section....

I would also put perhaps bobby hacket and Conrad Gozzo in this school....

How did it develop???

may be it comes partly from a european concert band tradition.... most of the UKs trumpets have played in a brass band and so have devloped the love of vibrato.... I guest horst would have been also involved in such things as well...

I know harry james was a big admirer of louis arm strong.... maybe it was his slant on louises sound (again harry james came from a concert band tradition... in the circus)

Tell me your thoughts...

Cheers

Jody

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JohnBennett · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 9:57 am Post subject:

Hi Jody,

You're right...Horst and Harry James did sound quite a bit alike....so did Ziggy Elman. Harry and Ziggy were both jazz players on the Benny Goodman band of the late 1930's. Ziggy was actually the lead player but he played lots of solos too. They sounded so much alike that it was often hard to tell who was playing lead or the solo! Those two were so influential that they set the pace for most of the jazz players of that time...almost everyone wanted to sound like them....Horst was about 10-12 years younger than Harry so he would fit right in with that swing style of playing.

Almost all the players in those days used lots of vibrato...Charlie Shavers, Roy Eldridge, Randy Brooks, Kenny Baker and Horst....two exceptions were Bix Biederbecke and Bunny Berrigan...they didn't use much at all and today's jazz players follow this style more or less.

The use of vibrato helped give an identity to most bands and players....dance bands through the years have always used more vibrato than jazz bands...and most jazz players or soloists came out of dance bands then. The use of vibrato ranged from the too-fast slurpy vibrato of commercial dance bands like Guy Lombardo to the "cool" no-vibrato sounds of Woody Herman, Les Brown and Stan Kenton. The great Ted Heath band from the UK fell somewhere in the middle...its players used quite a bit of vibrato.

Studio players both here in the US and in Europe tend to use a faster shallower vibrato that apparently records better and is a little more generic sounding...neither jazz band nor dance band. The key to using vibrato, I've always thought is to be able to control it...don't overdo it and use it only when necessary. If you are a soloist you can use as much as you want to suit the mood.

These are just a few thoughts coming from my 45 years as a fulltime working pro.

John

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oj · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 11:23 am Post subject:

Some good posts here... (I while since I checked)

Horst very, very tiny mpc can be seen on the nice website that MH made.

Direct link to it is:

http://www.magictrumpet.de/Mundstueck.jpg

Friedel Keim - "Das Trompeter-Taschenbuch" took measures of this mpc.

Ole

Trompeter · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:32 pm Post subject:

Horst in the 1950s, what a sound!

Link

Tony Scodwell · Heavyweight Member Joined: 17 Oct 2005 Posts: 1961

I joined the WDR Kurt Edelhagen big band in 1966. Unbeknownst to Horst, I had been hired to come in the band and replace the lead player, Milo Pavlovic [who was going to Berlin and the radio big band there] and Rick Kiefer was also hired to come on the band along with me [this was unbeknownst to me]. Horst was not informed of any of this and when he saw me for the first rehearsal, well, let's just say he sobered up quickly. Horst had been given his third [and final] notice for drinking on the gig and knew that he better get his act together. I found out a month later that Rick was also hired and now with Horst straight, I was the fifth man in a four man section and left to play lead with the new Buddy Rich Big Band in Las Vegas. Horst was not what you'd call friendly to me and Milo can be seen on a 1966 YouTube sitting next to me looking totally bored while I'm playing the first part on a TV show. Gotta love those egos. Anyway, the band was very good technically but if you hung the whole bunch of them on a gate they couldn't swing.
Tony Scodwell
Scodwell USA Trumpets and Flugelhorns available in the US only from Washington Music Center, call Lee Walkowich at 301.946.8808 or now in Europe at Musik-Bertram, Freiburg, Germany.