Workshop JAZZ AND MUSIC BUSINESS mit Wulf Müller

Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien
Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Wien
Pophaus, Raum F0139
Anmeldung: workshop-ipop@mdw.ac.at
In Kooperation mit dem Jam Music Lab

WULF MÜLLER – Biografie
Record Business Executive

Born Wulfhardt Müller on October 24th, 1955 in Hünfeld / Hessen / Germany as fourth child of Wolfgang and Annemarie Müller
Started elementary school 1962 in Hünfeld, but in 1964 the family moved to Berlin, where he continued elementary and started grammar school. By 1969 his family moved to Ebergassing, Austria (near Vienna), where he finished school and then in 1970 started high school for textile industries in Vienna. He did his Matura (Austrian equivalent to A-levels) in 1975 and started in the same year studying politics and journalism at the Vienna University.

Beside his studies he started in 1980 with some friends a jazz club and became Co-Manager of miles smiles, as the club is called, being responsible for music – CD’s to play and artists to book for the small venue. The opening night in that club had Bill Frisell in a duo with German bass player Eberhard Weber, followed by Zakir Hussain & L. Shankar and many more local and international acts.
At around the same time he started, together with photographer Rainer Rygalyk and drummer Rudi Staeger, the Austrian Jazz magazine JazzLive, which gave information on international and local jazz acts, festivals, tours and new recordings.

In October 1983 he began to work for PolyGram Austria as Product Manager IMS (Import Music Service), importing mainly US based jazz labels, like Gramavision, Fantasy, Milestone, Prestige etc. and of course local product from various PolyGram countries, especially Brazil.
Because of the success he had importing these jazz records, he was made in 1985 Product Manager for UK/US repertoire and was allowed to start the amadeo jazz series with local Austrian jazz musicians, whose first releases came out in 1986 – discs by Karheinz Miklin, Woody Schabata and Duo Due, the group by brothers Wolfgang and Christian Muthspiel. Over the next six years he signed and was Executive Producer of recordings by, among others, the following artists: Wolfgang Puschnig, Harry Pepl, the Vienna Art Orchestra, Bumi Fian, Wolfgang Muthspiel und Christian Muthspiel with their various solo projects as well as with Duo Due, plus American singer Linda Sharrock, who at that time was living in Vienna.

Meanwhile being promoted to Marketing Director of the company, he had some local success with pop campaigns and got international recognition for his jazz releases. Because of this unique combination of marketing skills and jazz knowledge he was in 1992 offered the newly created position of International Marketing Director Jazz at PolyGram International in London and therefore moved there in the same year.
One of the first international marketing and branding concepts he initiated were the Verve Nights in the European Summer Jazz Festivals, like Montreux Jazz, North Sea Jazz, Vitoria Jazz and many others, where young acts signed to the company got a place to open for one of the bigger acts he looked after and therefore could perform in front of the core audience and built a reputation.

During the following years he worked with all jazz artists signed either to Verve in the USA or any other PolyGram company around the world and co-ordinated the marketing efforts for their releases. Some of these artists were: Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter, Christian McBride, Jimmy Smith, Randy Weston, Sadao Watanabe and Diana Krall. Two of the most outstanding marketing campaigns were: The Next Generation, marketing oriented program for new and unknown jazz acts signed to the various local PolyGram companies, and Verve NOW, a tour project for new artist in Europe – in this campaign the selected acts would tour clubs all over Europe, fully paid for, and do promotion around the dates. This tour introduced for the first time to Europe acts like Danilo Perez, Silje Nergaard, Bugge Wesseltoft, Till Bronner and others and proved to be very successful.

After being promoted to VP International Marketing Classics & Jazz, Universal Music International in 1999 (when Universal Music had bought PolyGram they asked him to stay on) he became responsible for the International marketing for all Classics and Jazz priorities worldwide, as well as all local signings on Emarcy Jazz and Emarcy Classics. In 2003 A&R in Jazz for the Emarcy Label was added to his responsibilities. He then signed to Universal International acts like Madeleine Peyroux, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Michael Brecker, John Scofield, Charlie Haden, James Carter, Roy Hargrove, The Bad Plus, Jane Monheit, and Michel Camilo …. made License deals with Medeski, Martin & Wood, Doxy Records (Sonny Rollins), Marsalis Music, etc. and later brought new artists like Gerald Clayton and Julian Lage to Universal/Emarcy and acted as Executive Producer for most of their new recordings. Beside that he worked closely with all Universal companies and their local jazz signings and was directly involved in many recordings of artists like Ketil Bjornstad, Anna Maria Jopek, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Maria Joao, Mari Boine, Yosuke Yamashita, Chihiro Yamanaka and many more from all over the world.

His relationship with Bugge Wesseltoft and his Norwegian label Jazzland goes back to the start of the label in 1996 and he has meanwhile been involved in many of the labels releases – from Beady Belle to Hakon Kornstad.
In 2010 he started together with his wife, Yolanda Chalmeta, All-In-Music Service, a consultancy company for the music industry and Universal Music Group International became their first client, which gave the jazz artists signed to them a continuous point of referral. The Madrid, Spain based company worked as well closely with Sergio Mendes, Chinese singer Karen Mok and local Spanish act Josemi Carmona, as well as other locally signed Universal jazz acts, like singer Rebekka Bakken, sax player Wolfgang Puschnig and others. All-In-Music Service as well used to act as the European tour co-ordinator for artists like Branford Marsalis, James Carter, Jane Monheit and Karrin Allyson.
In 2012 All-In-Music Service signed an exclusive jazz A&R agreement with Sony Classical International to revive the OKeh jazz label by signing artists, established and new. By 2016 the workload for the label had increased to a point that the company had to stop booking in Europe and made their sole focus the artists of OKeh Records, which by then included Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sonny Rollins, Branford Marsalis, Kurt Elling, Dhafer Youssef, Bill Frisell, Theo Croker and many more.

He is married to his second wife Yolanda Chalmeta since 2007 and has one daughter from his first marriage, Hannah, born in 1993.