eJazzNews Archive

Karl Berger Named Chairman of UMass Dartmouth Music Department

Originally published on eJazzNews · · Press Releases

On October 25, 2004, eJazzNews carried a press release from Woodstock, New York, announcing that Karl Berger, the vibraphonist, pianist and co-founder of the Creative Music Studio, had been named chairman of the music department at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Berger, who was born in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1935, died in Albany, New York, on April 9, 2023, at the age of 88.

What the 2004 release said

According to the release, the appointment took effect with the fall 2004 semester, and Berger said a key part of the agreement was folding the Creative Music Studio program into the university’s year-round schedule. He described the Dartmouth department as unusual for combining world music, jazz and Western classical music in one place, an approach he compared to that of his own studio.

The release named the department’s faculty at the time: percussionist and composer Royal Hartigan, who had built the world music program, bassist and composer Santi Debriano in jazz studies, and Ken Ueno as the new professor of electronics and composition. It listed the CMS elements to be brought in: a visiting artist program, the “Basic Practice” exercises at the core of the studio’s teaching, and performance and recording projects. It also reminded readers that UMass Dartmouth, about an hour south of Boston between Providence and New Bedford, is not Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

The release closed with Berger’s résumé, including arrangements for Jeff Buckley’s Grace and Natalie Merchant’s Ophelia. It is inconsistent on one point, calling him a five-time DownBeat poll winner in one paragraph and a six-time winner in another, and it described his doctorate as being in “music esthetics.” WRTI’s obituary gives a 1963 doctorate in musicology from the University of Berlin; Wikipedia names the Free University of Berlin.

Karl Berger and the Creative Music Studio

Berger learned modern jazz in Heidelberg from American musicians stationed nearby, then joined trumpeter Don Cherry’s band in Paris in 1965. He came to the United States with Cherry to record Symphony for Improvisers for Blue Note in 1966 and settled in New York with the singer Ingrid Sertso, his wife. He worked with Ornette Coleman, Lee Konitz, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell, Carla Bley and John McLaughlin, among many others.

With Sertso and Coleman he set up the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock. The nonprofit behind it dates its founding to 1971, and the studio ran workshops, intensives and concerts from 1972 to 1984. It taught improvisers to develop their own voices and to draw on music from across genres and countries, with teachers who over the years included Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland, Don Cherry, Carla Bley and John Cage. More than 500 of its concert recordings are now held at Columbia University.

What happened next

Wikipedia and WRTI both list UMass Dartmouth among the schools where Berger taught, along with The New School and the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts; Wikipedia says he led the Dartmouth department until 2005. In 2013 he and Sertso revived the Creative Music Studio, and they retired as its co-directors in 2017; it still runs workshops. In New York he also conducted large improvising ensembles, among them Karl Berger's Stone Workshop Orchestra. His last album, Heart Is a Melody, made with cornetist Kirk Knuffke, came out on November 29, 2022, a few months before his death.

Where to start listening

  • Don Cherry, Symphony for Improvisers (Blue Note, 1966): Berger on vibraphone in the band that brought him to New York.
  • Karl Berger and Kirk Knuffke, Heart Is a Melody (Stunt, 2022): his final record, a quartet session co-led with the cornetist.

Sources

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
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