Biography
Flautist Lenny MacDowell operates from a German base and serves as a key figure in that country's smooth jazz and new age circles, working as a performer and producer while running the varied Blue Flame imprint. Although crossover pop elements surface on certain releases, his core approach fuses ambient textures, world music, jazz, and new age components in proportions that shift from project to project.
Originally named Friedemann Leinert—a credit he still employs from time to time as a producer and arranger—he received classical flute instruction before entering the vibrant German progressive scene of the 1970s. Engagements with lesser-known Krautrock and progressive jazz outfits such as Holderlin and Birth Control carried him through that decade, yet by the start of the 1980s he had launched an independent career under the adopted name Lenny MacDowell, occasionally rendered on artwork as “Lenny Mac Dowell.” His initial solo effort arrived in 1984 with Balance of Power, an artsy fusion of jazz, rock, and new age whose extended title track drew clear influence from Manfred Eicher's ECM aesthetic. Following that debut, MacDowell concentrated on establishing Blue Flame Records, devoting much of his schedule to producing, arranging, and performing on other artists' recordings while still issuing the occasional duet project, including the minimalist and heavily new age-tinged 1989 album Autumn Breath recorded with keyboardist Christoph Spendel. He also assembled Blue Planet, an intermittent ensemble co-led with percussionist Hakim Ludin that leaned more heavily toward world music. Amid these activities he continued to issue scattered solo albums, among them the uneven Flute Power, an ill-conceived crossover jazz-pop attempt hampered by clumsy renditions of material by Jethro Tull and the Easybeats, alongside a stronger sequence of increasingly world-inflected, new age-leaning works reminiscent of trumpeter Jon Hassell's collaborations with Brian Eno; the latter series encompassed 1995's Flying Torso, 1996's Radioactive—containing both fresh pieces and reconfigured earlier tracks—and 1997's The Farthest Shore.
Originally named Friedemann Leinert—a credit he still employs from time to time as a producer and arranger—he received classical flute instruction before entering the vibrant German progressive scene of the 1970s. Engagements with lesser-known Krautrock and progressive jazz outfits such as Holderlin and Birth Control carried him through that decade, yet by the start of the 1980s he had launched an independent career under the adopted name Lenny MacDowell, occasionally rendered on artwork as “Lenny Mac Dowell.” His initial solo effort arrived in 1984 with Balance of Power, an artsy fusion of jazz, rock, and new age whose extended title track drew clear influence from Manfred Eicher's ECM aesthetic. Following that debut, MacDowell concentrated on establishing Blue Flame Records, devoting much of his schedule to producing, arranging, and performing on other artists' recordings while still issuing the occasional duet project, including the minimalist and heavily new age-tinged 1989 album Autumn Breath recorded with keyboardist Christoph Spendel. He also assembled Blue Planet, an intermittent ensemble co-led with percussionist Hakim Ludin that leaned more heavily toward world music. Amid these activities he continued to issue scattered solo albums, among them the uneven Flute Power, an ill-conceived crossover jazz-pop attempt hampered by clumsy renditions of material by Jethro Tull and the Easybeats, alongside a stronger sequence of increasingly world-inflected, new age-leaning works reminiscent of trumpeter Jon Hassell's collaborations with Brian Eno; the latter series encompassed 1995's Flying Torso, 1996's Radioactive—containing both fresh pieces and reconfigured earlier tracks—and 1997's The Farthest Shore.
Albums
