Gunnar

- an exiting and extraordinary life from birth until now -
thanks to my beloved parents i had a wonderful childhood in Lisbon and i kept the good vibes of that spot with me until today.
After wild teenage-years bumming around in Europe, hiding without success in Paris before the German army and hanging out in Ketama, the private territories of the Moroccan King, i found my thrill by a lucky coincidence in the age of 23 in the world of music and backstages. I was beamed from zero without any pee-break into music-heaven.
(begin of the unavoidable namedropping-sector) My first tour was in 1973 as a roadie with Dave Liebman, then a tour with Steve Swallow, Gary Burton, Mick Goodrick, Bob Moses and Pat Metheny (in his age of 20) watch some snapshots: tourmemories 1973 .
In the same year i started to work as a roadmanager with Eberhard Weber, who in seven years together taught me a lot of things and opened my horizon about music wide. At the same time i started working for other "ECM recording artists" all over the European continent and the US: Egberto Gismonti (who in Portugal made me extend my abilities and become a sound-engineer ...), Jan Garbarek and Charlie Haden: turbulent memories from a gig in Athens, exciting memories of Jack De'Johnette in Hamburg's Onkel Pö ... to mention only a few of many cats i travelled with at that time (look into my friend's space).
On the first US-tour with E.Weber's band "Colours" and the band "Oregon" i drove Pat Metheny's Dodge-Maxivan all over the continent, 6000 miles from Rimouski in Canada to Phoenix,Arizona, from Ted Kurland's Boston to Seattle, Oregon ... the cops stopped me three times cause of high speed, but when i showed my german driver's licence they all seemed highly impressed, asked me about the free speed-limit on german highways and let me go, only once i got a ticket of 50$ in the desert of New Mexico.
Thomas Stöwsand, who at that time still was business- and promotion-manager of ECM records, kept me busy during fructile 7 years, before i worked a few years as a tourmanager for our dear Gabi Kleinschmidt and collected musical, human and social experiences with Sun Ra, Cecil (Cecil the only one), Lester Bowie or Larry Coryell (my advisor in Myo-ho rèn-gué kyo), Austrian adventures with Archie Shepp, hip times with Alphonse Mouzon ... not to forget my old friend Ula Dudziak, among many other great artists (look into my friend's space).
In mids 80s i became an independent tourbooker and agent. Baden Powell was my first artist to promote three years exclusively at his comeback in Europe and drive his white 12-cylinder Jaguar limousine. Charlie Mariano, Colin Walcott ... Anthony Braxton with ROVA, Enrico Rava, Myra Melford ... it lasts until today, look at my website (end of the unavoidable namedropping-sector).
Today i understand my life for music as an important monastic activity, after the definition of Morris Berman in his book "The Twilight Of American Culture", one of the most important documents of contemporary literature. American culture became a global purpose and is now valid for us all !
2005 i moved to Poland cause after all that daily life blues in Cologne, Germany is defenitely not really my kind of place.
people often ask me: why did you move to Poland, which language is a twisting exercise for your tongue ? -
... my beautiful wife Ilona comes from here, from Gdansk at the polish waterfront, 3 cities grown together: Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia, in polish it is Trojmiasta = Threecity. It is kind of adventurous to live out here in exile, have a look from my office window above the bay and be in touch with the international community of music producing individuals ...
The food here is much better than in Germany, not so healthy as in Portugal though, but pretty natural. Lifestyle in Poland is much more relaxed, it is to be compared somehow with the south european lifestyle and philosophy ... improvisation is a big generated talent of polish character, in every sense, besides in music.
So far i like to live here and look with a smile to all addicts of western dependencies ...get down, folks, relax...
check the bookking's professional webpages:
updates of current tours
the complete artist roster