Klaus König

Klaus König, born in Germany during 1959, first encountered music as a child. Trombone and piano lessons started for him by the time he turned eight. Formal training in classical trombone and composition began in 1975. He assembled the group Pinguin Liquid in 1987, then went on to establish the Klaus König Orchestra. His initial release, Times of Devastation/Poco a Poco, appeared on ENJA Records around 1989 and featured a sixteen-piece ensemble that included saxophonists Frank Gratkowski, Matthias Schubert, and Marty Ehrlich, tuba player Michel Godard, bassists Renato Cordovani, Tim Wells, and Michel Pilz, drummers John Betsch and Frank Köllges, pianist Simon Nabatov, trumpeters Kenny Wheeler, Ray Anderson, Bruce Collings, and Teiner Winterschladen, as well as König himself.

Festival performances and further ENJA recordings occupied him throughout the 1990s. At the End of the Universe, composed in 1990, reached listeners the following year. The Song of Songs merged jazz with gospel and drew on the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir. Time Fragments arrived in 1994 and was followed by Reviews, an album of even wider scope. H.E.A.R.T. Project circled back toward his origins, with the acronym standing for high explosive, art resistant textures.