Alexander von Schlippenbach
Alexander von Schlippenbach (born 7 April 1938) is a German jazz pianist and composer. He came to prominence in the 1960s playing free jazz in a trio with saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens, and as a member of the Globe Unity Orchestra. Since the 1980s, Von Schlippenbach has explored the work of more traditional jazz composers such as Jelly Roll Morton or Thelonious Monk.
Also recorded as Alex von Schlippenbach
Alexander von Schlippenbach
Schorle · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Name
- Alexander von Schlippenbach
- Born
- 7 April 1938
- Birthplace
- Berlin, Germany
- Occupation
- Musician
- Nationality
- Germany
- Fields
- jazz · free improvisation · free jazz
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Documentary summary
Alexander von Schlippenbach (born 7 April 1938) is a German jazz pianist and composer. He came to prominence in the 1960s playing free jazz in a trio with saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens, and as a member of the Globe Unity Orchestra. Since the 1980s, Von Schlippenbach has explored the work of more traditional jazz composers such as Jelly Roll Morton or Thelonious Monk.
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gnd · 10294776-4 · wikidata · Q459222 · wikipedia · Alexander von Schlippenbach
In this article
Biography
Biography
Schlippenbach worked across composer, pianist, jazz musician, music arranger and conductor and 2 further recorded occupations. The registers place that work in jazz, free improvisation and free jazz. This article rests on 100 catalogued compositions, 54 issued recordings, 1 digitised documents and 8 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Das Schlippenbach Trio beim Konzert im Club W71, Weikersheim (2019): Alexander von Schlippenbach (Klavier), Evan Parker (Saxophon) Paul Lytton (Schlagzeug).
Schorle

Das Schlippenbach Trio beim Konzert im Club W71, Weikersheim (2019): Alexander von Schlippenbach (Klavier), Evan Parker (Saxophon) Paul Lytton (Schlagzeug).
Schorle
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Alexander von Schlippenbach • Born — 7 April 1938 • Birthplace — Berlin, Germany • Genre — Jazz, Avant-garde jazz, Free jazz, Free improvisation • Occupation — Musician • Instrument — Piano • Years Active — 1950s–present • Website — avschlippenbach.com
Biography
Biography
Schlippenbach started to play piano from the age of eight and went on to study composition at Cologne under Bernd Alois Zimmermann. While studying he started to play with Manfred Schoof. At the age of 28 he founded the Globe Unity Orchestra. In 1988, he founded the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, a big band that has over the years comprised, among others, Willem Breuker, Paul Lovens, Misha Mengelberg, Evan Parker, Schlippenbach's wife Aki Takase and Kenny Wheeler. In 1994, he was awarded the Albert Mangelsdorff Prize. Schlippenbach has produced various recordings and worked for German radio channels. He played with many players of the European free jazz community. In 2005, he recorded the complete works of Thelonious Monk, which were released on CD as Monk's Casino.
As leader or co-leader
As leader or co-leader
• Globe Unity (SABA, 1967) • The Living Music (QUASAR, 1969) • Payan (Enja, 1972) • Pakistani Pomade (FMP, 1973) • Three Nails Left (FMP, 1975) • The Hidden Peak (FMP, 1977) • Piano Solo (FMP, 1977) • Rondo Brillante with Martin Theurer (FMP, 1983) • Anticlockwise (FMP, 1983) • Stranger Than Love with Paul Lovens, (Po Torch, 1985) • Smoke with Sunny Murray, (FMP, 1990) • Elf Bagatellen (FMP, 1990) • Physics (FMP, 1993) • Light Blue Schlippenbach Plays Monk (Enja, 1997) • Tangens with Sam Rivers (FMP, 1998) • Digger's Harvest with Tony Oxley (FMP, 1999) • Complete Combustion (FMP, 1999) • Hunting the Snake (Atavistic, 2000) • Swinging the Bim (FMP, 2000) • Compression (2002) • Broomriding (Psi, 2003) • Open Speech with Carlos Bechegas (Forward, 2004) • Vesuvius with Paul Dunmall (Slam, 2005) • Monk's Casino (Intakt, 2005) • Winterreise (Psi, 2006) • Twelve Tone Tales Vol. I (Intakt, 2006) • Twelve Tone Tales Vol. II (Intakt, 2006) • Dedalus with Daniele D'Agaro (Artesuono, 2007) • Friulian Sketches (psi, 2008) • Blackheath with Eddie Prevost (Matchless, 2008) • Gold Is Where You Find It (Intakt, 2008) • Bauhaus Dessau (Intakt, 2010) • Berlin with G9 Gipfel (Jazzwerkstatt, 2010) • Blue Hawk with Manfred Schoof (Jazzwerkstatt, 2011) • Schlippenbach Plays Monk (Intakt, 2012) • First Recordings (Trost, 2014) • Features (Intakt, 2015) • Warsaw Concert (Intakt, 2016) • Jazz Now! (Intuition, 2016) • So Far with Rudi Mahall (Relative Pitch, 2018) • Interweaving with Dag Magnus Narvesen (Not Two, 2018) • Liminal Field with Dag Magnus Narvesen (Not Two, 2019) With Globe Unity Orchestra • Live in Wuppertal (FMP, 1973) • Der Alte Mann Bricht...Sein Schweigen (FMP, 1974) • Bavarian Calypso & Good Bye (FMP, 1975) • Into the Valley Vol. 2 (FMP, 1976) • Evidence Vol. 1 (FMP, 1976) • Jahrmarkt & Local Fair (Po Torch, 1977) • Pearls (FMP, 1977) • Improvisations (Japo, 1978) • Hamburg '74 (FMP, 1979) • Compositions (Japo, 1980) • Intergalactic Blow (Japo, 1983) • Rumbling (FMP, 1991) • 20th Anniversary (FMP, 1993) • Globe Unity 67 & 70 (Atavistic, 2001) • Globe Unity 2002 (Intakt, 2003) • Baden-Baden '75 (FMP, 2011) • Globe Unity 40 Years (Intakt, 2007) • Globe Unity 50 Years (Intakt, 2018) With Sven-Ake Johansson • Live at the Quartier Latin (FMP, 1976) • Kung Bore (FMP, 1978) • Drive (FMP, 1981) • Kalfaktor A. Falke Und Andere Lieder (FMP, 1983) • Blind Aber Hungrig Norddeutsche Gesange (FMP, 1986) With Manfred Schoof • Voices (CBS, 1966) • Manfred Schoof Sextet (Wergo, 1967) • European Echoes (FMP, 1969) • The Early Quintet (FMP, 1978) With Aki Takase • Piano Duets: Live in Berlin 93/94 (FMP, 1995) • Live at Café Amores (NoBusiness, 1995) • Lok 03 (Leo, 2005) • Iron Wedding: Piano Duets (Intakt, 2008) • New Blues (Yellowbird, 2012) • So Long, Eric! (Intakt, 2014) • Signals (Trost, 2016) • Live at Cafe Amores (NoBusiness, 2018) • Hokusai Piano Solo (Intakt, 2019) With the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra • Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra (ECM, 1990) • The Morlocks and Other Pieces (FMP, 1994) • Live in Japan '96 (DIW, 1997)
As sideman
As sideman
With Peter Brotzmann • Alarm (FMP, 1983) • Up and Down (Olof Bright 2010) • Peter Brotzmann/Alexander von Schlippenbach/Achim Trampenau (Carbon Edition, 2013) • Fifty Years After (Trost, 2019) With Evan Parker • 50th Birthday Concert (Leo, 1994) • 2X3=5 (Leo 2001) • The Bishop's Move (Les Disques Victo, 2004) • America 2003 (Psi, 2004) With others • Gunter Hampel, Heartplants (SABA, 1965) • Gunter Hampel, Legendary (Birth 1998) • Mario Schiano, Unlike (Splasc(H), 1990) • Philipp Wachsmann, Free Zone Appleby, 2006 (Psi, 2007) • Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Die Befristeten & Improvisationen Uber Die Oper Die Soldaten & Tratto (Wergo, 1967) • Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Requiem fur Einen Jungen Dichter (Sony 1995)
Life and work
Life and work
Alexander von Schlippenbach was born on 7 April 1938 in Berlin. Schlippenbach held the nationality of Germany. Married to: Aki Takase. Recorded father: Stephan Graf von Schlippenbach. Recorded mother: Adelaide von Lepel. Recorded child: DJ Illvibe. Schlippenbach worked as composer, pianist, jazz musician and music arranger, and the authority record catalogues a further 3 occupations under the same name, among them conductor, musician and bandleader. Schlippenbach was active from 1950. The fields Schlippenbach worked in include jazz, free improvisation and free jazz. Schlippenbach played the piano and the trumpet. Schlippenbach worked in German.
Catalogued output
Compositions
The entries below are works composed by the subject, as the institutional registers catalogue them; later performances and commercial recordings of the same music are listed separately. 92 further compositions are catalogued under Schlippenbach's name without a date the collections agree on, which is why they are set apart from the dated run rather than placed in it. A selection is set out below and the complete run may be opened beneath it. Fuels 7.. Über Ursache und Wirkung der Meinungsverschiedenheiten beim Turmbau zu Babel — 9 catalogued parts. All Jazz Is Free. Change Is the Only Constant. Ba‐lue Bolivar Ba‐lues‐are. Bowed Stiffly and Went Free.
The entries follow MusicBrainz
Beelzebub's Tales: Revised
A Merrier Christmas
Bird of the Year
Ask Me Now
Crepuscule With Nellie
Four in One
Fra di noi
52nd Street Theme
Friday the 13th
Coming on the Hudson
Boo Boo's Birthday
Issued recordings, 1973–2020
Primary material
Issued recordings, 1973–2020
These are published sound issues catalogued under the name. Most postdate the works they carry, and an issue is never counted here as a work of composition. 8 issues carry dates between 1973 and 2020. The run opens with Pakistani Pomade and closes with Slow Pieces for Aki: Piano Solo. The 2000s are the densest part of the run, with 3 titles, and that concentration is a fact about what the registers have catalogued rather than a judgement on the work itself. They belong to a run of 9 titles in all, from 1973 to 2020.
Issued recordings without a settled date
Primary material
Issued recordings without a settled date
1 further issue are catalogued under Schlippenbach's name without a date the collections agree on, which is why they are set apart from the dated run rather than placed in it.
Recordings and discography
Primary material
Recordings and discography
The discography assembled here shows how Schlippenbach's work has been published in sound, not what Schlippenbach made. 45 sound issues are catalogued, carrying dates from 1967 to 2025. An issue is a published recording, distinct from the composition it carries, from a printed score of that composition and from any single performance of it; none of the entries below is counted in the catalogue of compositions above, and several of them carry the same work in different readings. The 2010s are the densest decade of publication, with 17 issues. The performers and issuing labels are as the discographic register states them; where it names no performer the article names none.
Live in Berlin
2022
Stranger Than Love
1985
Kitchen Orchestra with Alexander Von Schlippenbach
2013
50 Jahre Jazz Fest Berlin
2014
Piano Duets - Live in Berlin, 93/94
1995
Idylle und Katastrophen
1980
Versuch der Rekonstruktion einer vergangenen Zeit / II
2020
The Living Music
1972
Schraubenlieder
2017
Vesuvius
2005
Live At Café Amores
2018
Slow Pieces for Aki
2020
Payan
1972
Liminal Field
2019
Dedalus
2007
So Far
2018
Fingerprints
2010
Fifty Years After
2019
Kairos
2024
Globe Unity
1967
Smoke, dated 1990.. Über Ursache und Wirkung der Meinungsverschiedenheiten beim Turmbau zu Babel
2017
Iron Wedding
2009
Broomriding
2003
Free Flow
2025
Free Zone Appleby 2006
2007
Blue Hawk
2011
The Morlocks and Other Pieces
1994
Monk’s Casino
2005
Lok 03
2005
Digger's Harvest
1999
Blackheath
2008
Twelve Tone Tales Vol
Monk's Mood
2014
Red Dhal Sextet
2013
Tangens
1998
Abstract Window
2017
America 2003
2004
Globe Unity - 50 Years
2018
So Long, Eric!
Homage to Eric Dolphy
2014
Four Hands Piano Pieces
2023
Interweaving
2017
Live at Spielraum: Trio / Quartet / Sextet
2016
Primary material
Documents and archives
scholarly publication
- Alexander von Schlippenbach and the Question of Tabula Rasa, Jazz on the Line, 2020
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2020
reference work
- “Alexander von Schlippenbach”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q459222: Alexander von Schlippenbach
Unverified · Wikidata
Where the work is held
Institutional memberships
Schlippenbach is recorded as a member of Evan Parker Trio, Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra and Globe Unity Orchestra. Membership is stated by the bodies' own records and is not read here as evidence of office or of any particular role within them.
Authority records
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
Alexander von Schlippenbach and the Question of Tabula Rasa, Jazz on the Line, 2020Crossref registry
Verifiedreference work
Partially resolvedauthority record
Unverified
A further 1 witness is held back from this article because the person or object named in it is not yet resolved to this record. They are kept, not discarded, and return once the identity is established.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
42,824 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
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- Alexander von ZemlinskyPerson
- Alexander VoormolenPerson
- Alexander VustinPerson
- Alexander Wheelock ThayerPerson
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