Music career
Zoller was born in Visegrád, Hungary.[1] As a child, he learned violin from his father, a professional violinist.[1] While in school, he played flugelhorn and bass before choosing guitar.[1] He dropped out of school and played in jazz clubs in Budapest while Russia occupied Hungary. He fled Hungary in 1948 as the Soviet Union was establishing communist military rule.[1] He escaped on foot, carrying his guitar through the mountains into Austria.[1] He settled in Vienna, became an Austrian citizen, and started a jazz group with accordionist Vera Auer.[2]
In the mid-1950s, Zoller moved to Germany and played with German musicians Jutta Hipp and Hans Koller.[1] When American jazz musicians passed through, such as Oscar Pettiford and Lee Konitz, they persuaded him to move to the United States.[1] He moved to the U.S. after receiving a scholarship to the Lenox School of Jazz.[1] One of his teachers was guitarist Jim Hall and his roommate was Ornette Coleman, who got him interested in free jazz.[2]
From 1962–1965, Zoller performed in a group with flautist Herbie Mann, then Lee Konitz and Albert Mangelsdorff.[1] Over the years, he played and recorded with Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Red Norvo, Jimmy Raney, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Shirley Scott, Cal Tjader, Jimi Hendrix, and in New York City jazz clubs in the 1960s with pianist Don Friedman[3]
In 1974, he started the Attila Zoller Jazz Clinics in Vermont, later named the Vermont Jazz Center, where he taught until 1998. He invented a bi-directional pickup,[1] designed strings and a signature guitar series. Between the years 1989 and 1998, he played more and more with the German vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmid. They also did recordings together.[4] He performed with Tommy Flanagan and George Mraz in New York City three weeks before his death in 1998 in Townshend, Vermont.[2]
