Collection of previously unreleased soundtrack recordings, produced 1962-67 in a Berlin studio. Soulful jazz from the arthouse films of Hansjürgen Pohland improvised directly in front of the screen by Hungarian-born guitarist Attila Zoller (1927-1998) and his musicians!
Few Europeans have influenced the international jazz scene as impressive as the Hungarian-born guitarist Attila Zoller. Born on 13.06.1927 in Visegrad, he was four years old when he got his first music lessons. From 1948 to 1954 Zoller lived in Vienna and worked regularly in the local jazz scene. Then he moved to Germany, worked with Jutta Hipp, Albert and Emil Mangelsdorff, Oscar Pettiford, Kenny Clarke, But Shank, Bob Cooper and Lee Konitz.
In 1959 he moved to the United States, where he studied with Jim Hall and visited the Lenox School of Jazz with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. That is where Zoller first was exposed to freer jazz. 1960 Chico Hamilton took him into his band. Then he played on the international jazz scene as a sideman of Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Herbie Mann, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins and Ron Carter. His album "Beyond The Horizon", released in 1965, became a milestone between Cool and free jazz playing. This was followed by famous LPs like "Zoller Koller Solal" or "Zo-Ko-Ma" (1968).
Regularly Attila Zoller also appeared in Europe, especially in Germany, where he was awarded with the “Golden Bear” at the Berlin Film Festival for his lyrical soundtrack to Heinrich Böll`s "The Bread of Our Early Years", together with Joachim-Ernst Berendt. Jazz fan Pohland chose Zoller personally and commissioned him to compose and improvise the film music. His "Bread of Our Early Years" symbolized the false comfort of the German Adenauer Republic and became the first milestone of the “Oberhausener”. As a director, he thematized the German enthusiasm for the war in "Cat and Mouse", with the actors Lars and Peter Brandt (sons of Willy Brandt), and put the Knight`s Cross in the center. The moralists were snubbed and the film caused a full-blown scandal. Besides the radical new imagery, his semi-documentary crime film "Tamara" contained clear references to social criticism.
The music for Pohland`s movies was played by Zoller and his sidemen directly in front of the screen and recorded by technicians. Before the tapes should disappear for almost five decades, Pohland used them for post-production. It is thanks to Berlin-based photographer, actor and jazz lover Jan George that the recordings are not lost. Although Pohland archived the tapes at first, they were later left as garbage on the road by transporters who moved his stuff from Berlin to Munich. There the reels were discovered by Pohlands friend Jan George, who kept the treasure in his crates until the digital transfer in 2012.
