Albert Mangelsdorff: If hurried, the trombone tends to take on a flustered, indignant sound. If attempts are made to break away from its long, purring sounds and deep sonorities, it can become slurred, spluttery, like a far-gone drunk. Albert Mangelsdorff, who has died aged 76, allowed nothing to block his determination to expand this awkward instrument's eloquence.
Mangelsdorff was one of the most original jazz musicians to have developed outside the US. His multiphonic approach - playing more than one note simultaneously and humming or singing and playing at the same time - defied the limitations of the trombone's plumbing. He also led some of the most distinctive bands in European jazz, applying a palette of startling sound effects and phrasing both to Europeanised mutations of American jazz practices and new developments.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mangelsdorff had the option of joining the New Orleans revivalist movement or pursuing the more taxing modern paths offered by innovators such as JJ Johnson, mimicking the faster phrasing of saxophones and trumpets. He took the latter course, but preferred the long legato lines of west coast cool-school players to the more frenetic melodies of bop's first wave. His playing retained a fascination with melody and an impatience with knee-jerk reactions, stagy climaxes or "hot licks".
Mangelsdorff was born in Frankfurt in Germany in 1928, but the family moved to near Stuttgart. His brother introduced him to jazz during its Nazi prohibition, which had to be explored via the secret "Frankfurt Hot Club" and the "enemy radio station".
He studied violin and classical music theory but in 1946 taught himself the guitar and began playing professionally, initially in the big band of Otto Laufner, which played US Army bases and clubs. In 1948 he took up the trombone under the guidance of Frankfurter Oper musician Fritz Stahr.
Stahr's tuition and a fascination with the complex logic of cool jazz guru Lennie Tristano's music saw Mangelsdorff emerge as a sophisticated trombonist.
In the early 1950s he worked with pianist Joe Klimm, then with Austrian saxophonist Hans Koller's New Jazz Stars. He joined the Hessischer Rundfunk radio orchestra in Frankfurt in 1955 and in 1957 became leader of the station's resident jazz ensemble. The following year he played the Newport Jazz Festival in the US in an international youth band.
In 1961 he formed an experimental quintet with tenor saxophonist Heinz Sauer which dominated the West German modern jazz scene until 1971. The group continued until 1978, but in the 1960s and 1970s Mangelsdorff had also made strides as a solo voice.
He also travelled in Asia at the invitation of the Goethe Institute. The modal structural principles of much Asian music appealed to him as a release from European "vertical" harmony, a change evident on his 1964 album New Jazz Ramwong.
The following year, Mangelsdorff's quintet won Downbeat magazine's "talent deserving wider recognition" category and another Newport performance followed. He was by now regularly performing with the biggest names - including Dizzy Gillespie and Lee Konitz, with whom he made a memorable German radio broadcast in 1968.
Mangelsdorff was finding new challenges in free improvisation. He played with Peter Brotzmann, a fierce saxophonist, and joined pianist Alex von Schlippenbach's equally tempestuous Globe Unity Orchestra, which mingled free improvisation with the early jazz compositions of Jelly Roll Morton.
In 1972 he gave solo recitals without electronic aid but was also at ease in an ensemble. From the 1980s, he was a leading figure in the Union Deutscher Jazzmusiker and from 1981 he was co-leader of the German-French Jazz Ensemble. A group with American bassist John Lindberg expanded to include former Oscar Peterson drummer Ed Thigpen in 1994. The following year he became music director of the Berlin Jazz Festival.
Mangelsdorff wrote books of technical instruction and on the development of jazz in Germany. The Union Deutscher Jazzmusiker offers an annual award in his name for jazz excellence.
Albert Mangelsdorff: born September 5th, 1928; died July 25th, 2005