Biography
Manfred Schoof honed an inventive approach to jazz from an early age by regularly working on either trumpet or flügelhorn. Already while still in secondary school he began writing original arrangements. Deciding in 1955 to make music his profession, he entered the Musikakademie in Kassel. Three years of study and performance there preceded his move to the Musikhochschule in Cologne. During that period he attended a jazz course taught by Kurt Edelhagen, the West German bandleader who maintained his own radio program, and the two musicians soon developed a working relationship that found Schoof contributing to Edelhagen’s Radio Big Band broadcasts. Concurrently he started touring alongside Gunter Hampel. In 1965 Schoof assembled a free-jazz quintet that included Gerd Dudek and Alex Von Schlippenbach; the ensemble served as the direct precursor to the Manfred Schoof Orchestra, which he launched in 1969. That larger ensemble traveled across Germany and the rest of Europe and counted Evan Parker and Irène Schweizer among its members. Also in 1969 Schoof entered the George Russell Orchestra, remaining until 1971. Over the following twenty years he broadened his activities by recording and performing with ensembles such as the Global Unity Orchestra and with Jasper Van’t Hof, while simultaneously turning to the composition of concert works frequently written for the Berlin Philharmonic.
Albums
