About
PERFORMER.PRODUCER.DIRECTOR.
A PASSIONATE PERFORMER.
Music has the power to transport us to another time and place. Fritz K Renold loves to harness that power with a broad audience of fellow music lovers and passionate musicians alike. Ever since a young age, Fritz K Renold has found great joy and satisfaction in making music and sharing it with fans and people all over the world. Take a look around the site to get to know Fritz K Renold and all that they have to offer. His Band, Fritz Renold and the Bostonian Friends from Left to Right, Christian Jacob, Randy Brecker, Mike Richmond, Fritz Renold, Adam Nussbaum and Bob Berg.
performer.
FRITZ RENOLD & THE BOSTONIAN FRIENDS
Fritz Renold was born February 27, 1960, in Wettingen, Switzerland. His father played accordion and introduced Fritz to Tango and Dixieland. As a boy clarinetist, Renold played Mozart's Concerto, "Saints," gospel, and Beatles songs. He joined the school band at 14 in order to get an alto sax, even though he hated marches (and still does!) He heard Charlie Parker then, but remained unimpressed until, at 18, he joined a big band and played Sammy Nestico's Basie Book. When he discovered Miles Davis' Funny Valentine and Kinda Blue in the LP bins at Montreux, he ‘got hooked’ on jazz.
Renold flew to Boston and thrived in Berklee College’s international music community. Three ‘audition’ big band scores -- Take The A Train, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Blues For Susy – earned him the Quincy Jones Award and a full scholarship with advanced placement. Since Berklee recommended that he compose, he took every composition course he could, including ‘amazing’ ones with Herb Pomeroy, Bob Freedman and Greg Hopkins. He had Joe Viola and Bill Pierce as his Saxophone teachers and was in best hands in improvisation classes of Gary Burton and John LaPorta among others. Renold graduated in 1987; through 1990 he served as Berklee's first Swiss faculty member.
producer.
JAZZAAR FESTIVAL PRODUCER
In 1999 Renold united all the living Ellington band alumni with alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, cast as Johnny Hodges. It was the largest assemblage of Ellingtonians during Duke Ellington’s centennial year. The band performed and recorded classic Ducal suites: The Queen’s Suite, Far East Suite and Such Sweet Thunder. Eight Ellington alumni filled the brass and rhythm chairs: trumpeters Benny Bailey, Bill Berry (also conductor), Barrie Lee Hall; trombonists Buster Cooper, Art Barron, Britt Woodman; Aaron Bell (as ‘boy pianist’), John Lamb on bass, Charlie Persip on drums. Touring Switzerland, Bill Berry recalled, “The band got back the old spirit of hangin’ in hotel lounges, playin’ til 4 a.m. and almost missing planes. The last time this happened was at the White House in 1968.”
director.
MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Saxophonist, composer, bandleader, pedagogue and festival director Fritz K Renold maintains his home base in Aarau, Switzerland. Together with his wife Helen Savari, a recording artists of EMI Malaysia, he started a new concept of music education called “Bandstand Learning With Role Models”. Over the last 30 years he wrote over 1’500 compositions and arrangements, founded Shanti Records and co-produced over 60 CD’s and 40 DVD’s, became a Festival Director and the father of three children.
