Over the years Michael Mantler has worked with many different artists, all contributing to his music in their own particular way. Examining the whole of his work, one finds that some keep reappearing more often than others, obviously having been of particular importance.

An indispensable collaborator and source of inspiration, she has been involved with Mantler's work for a long period of time, not only as "third ear" and as producer of many of his early recordings, but also as pianist (appreciated for her originality and her exceptional musicality). On the other hand,  Mantler was also very much involved in her own music and career not only as producer and coordinator of her work, but as performer on many of her recording and touring projects as well. A very long mutual relationship on a musical, business and personal basis.

Go to Discography for all recorded collaborations,
for more information see Carla Bley on Wikipedia and the WATT website.

Jack Bruce was one of the two most important and distinctive voices in Mantler's universe. After their original meeting during the production of Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill, they had worked together since 1973 on a number of recordings as well as live performances. He provided, almost without exception, the voice for Mantler's interpretations of Samuel Beckett's texts. He appears on No Answer, Live, Many Have No Speech (here also interpreting songs with Ernst Meister's texts in German!), Folly Seeing All This, and The School of Understanding.

For more information see Jack Bruce on Wikipedia and the Jack Bruce website.

As Mantler's other major and unique voice, Robert Wyatt has been inextricably linked with his music. His whimsical interpretations of songs with Edward Gorey's texts on The Hapless Child are classics, on Silence he not only provided vocals but also percussion tracks, on Many Have No Speech he sings Philippe Soupault's texts in French (!), and on the School of Understanding album he contributes one central song (which appeared during performances in a specially produced music video clip). Their last collaboration was Hide and Seek, an album featuring duets with Susi Hyldgaard, with music composed by Mantler to texts of Paul Auster.

For more information see the Robert Wyatt website.

Nick Mason, Pink Floyd drummer, who Mantler met first during the production of The Hapless Child, where he provided some engineering work at his Britannia Row studios, continued to be involved on several record productions (Something There, Live) as well as live performances (a radio concert at WDR in Cologne and at the Frankfurt  Art-Rock Festival), providing the rock drumming Mantler had become extremely fond of during a certain period in his musical evolvement. In exchange, Mantler became involved as trumpet player (as well as recording engineer) on Mason's solo album Fictitious Sports. Their collaboration was revived with Mason appearing as soloist in Mantler's Concertos.

It was also through him that Mantler was introduced to Rick Fenn of 10cc, the guitarist who was to continue providing the electric guitar role so important in Mantler's music (preceded by the likes of Larry Coryell, Terje Rypdal, Chris Spedding, Philippe Catherine and Mike Stern) during several of his next projects, such as the Live, Many Have No Speech and Folly Seeing All This albums.

For more information see Nick Mason and Rick Fenn at Wikipedia.

Keyboardist with a great range of musicians and original member of Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention, Don Preston collaborated with Mantler as synthesist on several recording and performing projects, including Alien (an almost entirely synthesized "orchestral" piece), Live, (with Jack Bruce, Nick Mason and Rick Fenn) and (primarily as singer) in The School of Understanding.

For more information see Don Preston at Wikipedia.

Originally bassist and collaborator with many English "art rock" and jazz bands, including Henry Cow, Fred Frith, Robert Wyatt, Mike Oldfield, Link Wray and National Health. Continued with solo projects including the first notable album Kew Rhone (it was during that production that Greaves and Mantler originally met), a collaboration with Peter Blegvad. Also worked with The Pedestrians, The Penguin Café Orchestra, The Lodge, Peter Gordon and Michael Nyman. Now mostly touring and recording on his own as pianist/composer/singer. He appeared on Mantler's Live album (with Jack Bruce, Nick Mason and Rick Fenn), The School of Understanding  and, most recently, Sempre Notte.

For more information see John Greaves at Wikipedia.

With Mona Larsen Mantler had found yet another exceptionally interesting voice who has contributed an unparalleled emotional depth to his Cerco Un Paese Innocente album (singing brilliantly in Italian - not her native language...!). She has also been a member of his Chamber Music and Songs Ensemble on the Songs and One Symphony album and appears in an important role in The School of Understanding.

For more information see the Mona Larsen website.

An immensely experienced musician who has performed and recorded with a multitude of musicians and groups, guitarist Bjarne Roupé continues the tradition of the electric (and in some instances also acoustic) guitar soloist. Demonstrating great empathy for Mantler's music, he was a member of the Chamber Music and Songs Ensemble and participated in the Cerco Un Paese Innocente and School of Understanding recordings and performances, followed by appearances on Songs and One Symphony and Hide and Seek. He was the soloist on Guitar during its premiere performance at the Berlin JazzFest, as well as on its subsequent recording released on Concertos. His latest contributions are on  For Two (guitar and piano duets), The Jazz Composer's Orchestra Update, CODA - Orchestra Suites and Sempre Notte.

For more information go to the Bjarne Roupé website.

David Helbock, a remarkably gifted and creative pianist, has enhanced Mantler's music during live appearances and on record since 2013, appearing on the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Update and Comment C'est albums and, most recently, participating on CODA - Orchestra Suites and Sempre Notte.

For more information see the David Helbock website.

Having contacted Michael Mantler originally with a proposal for working together, he was met with very little enthusiasm. However, Davis being somewhat insistent and developing some concrete and enthusiastic offers to present various projects, eventually did lead to a close creative relationship, with his bass clarinet becoming an important element in Mantler's performing and recording projects.

For more information see the Gareth Davis website.

With the establishment of Michael Mantler's New Songs Ensemble a new voice made its appearance in his "collection" of extraordinary singers: Italian Annie Barbazza, brought to his attention by John Greaves, who had often worked with her on is own projects. A voice of great range and individuality, singing and interpreting the music not only with precision (in Italian, English, and French), but also with enormous passion, complementing Mantler's vision perfectly during a number of performances as well as on his first recorded outing with her on his Sempre Notte album.

For more information see the Annie Barbazza website.

As important as musicians obviously are for bringing a composer's music to life, yet another element needs to be involved in producing a recording, on a technical level as well as on a creative one. Recording engineer Gérard de Haro (together with partner Nicolas Baillard) and his state-of-the-art La Buissonne studios at Pernes-les-Fontaines in the South of France, provide just that for Mantler's productions. Starting with the Concertos album in 2007, they continued to work together on For Two, The Jazz Composer's Orchestra Update, Comment c'est and, most recently, his CODA - Orchestra Suites project). De Haro's technical proficiency, paired with an exceptional understanding and genuine love of all kinds of music, has expanded the traditional role of the "recording engineer" as we know it and has made him an essential part of Mantler's musical universe.

Most of Mantler's productions involve larger ensembles, ranging from chamber orchestras of varying sizes to jazz big band. Their realizations in both performing as well as recording contexts could only come to perfection under the guide of a competent and enthusiastic conductor. Multi-talented Christoph Cech - musician, orchestra leader, conductor, teacher, and composer in his own right - has not only been the perfect, but indispensible companion to bring Mantler's often difficult music to its fruition. Their collaboration began in 2012, with the première of Chamber Music Eight with the Max Brand Ensemble, continuing with the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Update project featuring Cech's own Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band, and on to the song cycle Comment C'est, finally arriving at their most recent work together, the CODA - Orchestra Suites.

For more information see the Christoph Cech website.

Photographer Tod Papageorge (published, among others, by Steidl and Aperture) has been a friend since Mantler's early days in the United States during the 1960s and has often contributed photographs to incorporate into his albums designs. His photos appear in the Jazz Composer's Orchestra and Something There albums and on the cover of Many Have No Speech and Sempre Notte. Together with other photographer friends Garry Winogrand and Paul McDonough (who was also the graphics designer for Mantler and Bley's JCOA and WATT labels), Papageorge has also contributed many images for the booklet of Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill.

For more information see the Zander Gallery website.

And finally, although not a musician, the author Samuel Beckett has been of great importance and special significance in Michael Mantler's early work. His first use of Beckett's texts appears in the album No Answer (segments from the novel How It Is), continuing to Something There, which originally formed the basis for an instrumental piece,  but was later to reappear as a song on Many Have No Speech, which also included other new texts from Beckett's Mirlitonnades. Several of these songs resurfaced again in other versions on the Live album. And finally, Beckett's last poem, What Is The Word, was recorded on the album Folly Seeing All This, sung, as all of his previous songs with Beckett's words, by Jack Bruce. Another interpretation of that poem was included in and represented the conclusion to Mantler's The School of Understanding.

For more information see Samuel Beckett at Wikipedia.

No artists or their music can be truly successful without an effective link between the work and its audience. In the case of recorded music, its physical or digital representation must have an entity that promotes and distributes it.

After their initial iconic releases (Michael Mantler's The Jazz Composer's Orchestra and Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill) on JCOA Records, and then continuing to release on their own record label WATT, their main outlet had been the New Music Distribution Service (NMDS), the company they had, out of necessity, created in the early 1970s for the general new music scene to assist innovative musicians and composers ignored by the commercial music business.

At that time, Mantler and Bley met Manfred Eicher, founder of ECM Records, for the first time in London during a meeting of several European independent musicians' labels who came together to discuss distribution and, as a result, began exchanging distribution services internationally. NMDS was ECM's first distributor in the USA, which eventually was discontinued, though, because the label, having become too successful for NMDS to efficiently handle, then moved on to major label distribution agreements. What remained, though, was that ECM continued to distribute the JCOA and WATT releases.

When Mantler left the USA and WATT in 1991 to return to Europe, Manfred Eicher and ECM remained loyal to his work and from then on released Mantler's new music on the ECM label. Although not involved in Mantler's recordings as producer, Eicher had the foresight and respect to never interfere and recognized the work as important enough on its own, continuing to harbor almost the totality of Mantler's œuvre to this day.

For more information see the ECM website.

In the course of his career, Michael Mantler has mostly concentrated on recording rather than performing. Concerts of his music, often requiring larger ensembles, and therefore expensive and complicated to produce, had been rare events. Nevertheless, upon his return to Europe from the USA in the early 1990s, his public appearances became, although still relatively rare, a somewhat more consistent feature of his public presence.

That, almost without exception, was due to the efforts of Christoph Huber, who regularly presented Mantler's music at the outstanding music venue Porgy & Bess in Vienna. A complete list and more information can be found here.