Michael Mantler
b. 10 August 1943, Vienna, Austria. Mantler took up trumpet at the age of 12, and from 14 worked in dance bands, playing stock arrangements with little opportunity for creative jazz. He found more musical freedom after moving to the USA in 1962. After what he regarded as educationally barren years at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston, he moved to New York in 1964 and immediately became involved with musicians such as Paul Bley, Carla Bley (whom he would later marry) and Cecil Taylor. In 1965-66 he toured Europe with Carla Bley and Steve Lacy in the Jazz Realities quintet. In more recent times, he has toured with Carla Bley's Sextet and Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, and has recorded several albums of his own pieces. Although a striking trumpet player, he concentrates most of his energy on organizing, producing and composing (often setting the words of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Edward Gorey to music). He was a co-founder of the Jazz Composers’ Guild and the Jazz Composers’ Orchestra Association. He also set up two record labels with Carla Bley: Watt, for their own recordings, and JCOA Records, to promote the work of others.