Obituary jazz pioneer Karl Berger: The escape – culture

Karl Berger is dead, who was everything possible: pianist, vibraphonist, composer, music teacher. Above all, however, he was one of the pioneers who turned jazz into a new world language in the 1960s, which was no longer concerned with origins, forms or styles. For him, the set of rules of European music theory, with its harmonic system and well-tempered tones, was just a cultural construct. One of many to build on. He had learned that from Don Cherry in the early 1960s, and from Ornette Coleman, the young jazz rebels who became his companions.