Urs Leimgruber

Urs Leimgruber (1 January 1952 in Lucerne) is a Swiss saxophonist. He lived in Paris from 1988 to 2005. Then he came back to his home town, Lucerne. His fields of activity are improvisation, jazz and 20th-century classical music.

Works Leimgruber founded in 1972 the Lucerne-based rock-jazz quartet OM, with guitarist Christy Doran, drummer Fredy Studer, and double bassist Bobby Burri. the band toured Switzerland and Germany for almost a decade performing their "electric jazz-free music." He then played with Reflexionen, a quartet featuring Don Friedman, Burri, and Joël Allouche, while also playing in a duo with John Wolf Brennan until 1989. He also formed the quartet Noir with Joëlle Léandre on double bass, pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Fritz Hauser.

His collaboration with Fritz Hauser as a duo is publicly documented in two audio recordings from the 1990s. In the 2010s Leimgruber revived this musical-instrumental configuration in jazz, that traces its origins to John Coltrane and Rashied Ali in the second half of the 20th century, paring with Roger Turner and Alex Huber. The improvisation quartet also showcases Leimgruber playing alongside leading figures of the fourth generation of contemporary improvised music such as, Oliver Schwerdt, Alexander Schubert and Christian Lillinger. Leimgruber also has a long and intensive collaboration in a trio with Barre Philips and Jacques Demierre.

Discography

With Steve Lacy Mountain Hymn (1986) An Chara (1987) Room 423 (2026)