RIP Peter Schmidlin (1947-2015)

Image courtesy of Dragan Tasic

Swiss jazz drummer Peter Schmidlin, who had played and recorded with Dexter Gordon, Lee Konitz, Dizzy Reece, Slide Hampton, and Don Byas, passed away last Monday, May 25, 2015. He was 68.

Known for his adaptability, perfect sense of timing, and a tasteful touch of swing, Schmidlin was one of the finest European drummers, as well as a producer responsible for issuing on record some of the best American jazz in Switzerland. It's a shame, though not entirely unpredictable, that his death remained unnoticed outside his homeland country.

"Peter Schmidlin was very popular with the US jazz musicians as a swinging drummer," writes Urs Blindenbacher in his obituary of this legend of Swiss Jazz. Blindenbacher also praises Schmildin for his role in connecting the separated worlds of French speaking Swiss jazz with that of the German speaking one.

Peter Schmidlin was born in 1947 in Riehen. He picked up the instrument at 14 and taught himself playing and mastering it. Only two years later, he was named as the best drummer at the Zürich Jazz Festival.

Young Peter with Buck Clayton and Sir Charles Thompson at Casa Bar Zürich

His professional career took off in 1965 and soon he found himself accompanying visiting American musicians, as well as jazz expats and exiles residing in western and northern Europe, a task which continued to the last months of his life.

In later years, he was a permanent member of three major jazz trios, respectively led by Tele Montoliu, Horace Parlan, and Jimmy Woode.