Joe Beck & Attila Zoller
Biography Joe Beck & Attila Zoller
Joe Beck
"Studio and session guitarist Joe Beck was well known for hits when backing vocalist Esther Phillips on Kudu in the '70s, although his session credentials over the years also included the likes of Miles Davis, James Brown, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, and Gil Evans. During the '80s he made a series of competent fusion and pop-jazz recordings for DMP and had a big hit recording with Dave Sanborn on CTI in 1975. His career continued into the '90s and beyond with albums like 1991's Relaxin', 1997's Alto, and his 2000 collaboration with Jimmy Bruno, Polarity. Beck was active throughout most of the new millennium’s first decade with recordings on a variety of labels, including a number of CDs on Whaling City Sound, such as 2002's Just Friends, 2007's Tri07, 2008's Coincidence (a duo recording with John Abercrombie), and 2009's Golden Earrings. The latter album, featuring Beck and singer Laura Theodore performing music made famous by singer Peggy Lee, proved to be Beck’s final recording -- the guitarist was diagnosed with lung cancer soon after work on Golden Earrings had been completed and died from complications of the disease in July 2008 at age 62." (Ron Wynn, AMG)
Attila Zoller
(1927 in Hungary 1998 in Vermont) was already a successful musician when he came in contact with Framus in the late fifties. The guitarist worked with pianist Vera Auer in Vienna till 1954, later played in Germany with Jutta Hipp, Albert & Emil Mangelsdorff, Hans Koller and Oscar Pettiford. Zoller moved to the United States in 1959, studied with Jim Hall, played in the bands of Chico Hamilton and Herbie Mann, and created a milestone in 1965 between cool and free jazz playing styles when he released the album entitled The Horizon Beyond (with pianist Don Friedman, among others). More, today legendary recordings followed: "Katz und Maus" (1966), "Zoller Koller Solal" and "Zo-Ko-Ma" (1968), two exceptional albums with Japanese pianist Masahiko Sato ("Duologue" and "A Path Through Haze"), a then contemporary electric jazz production with Herbie Hancock ("Gypsy Cry" 1971), the trio album "Common Cause" (1979, with Ron Carter and Paul Chambers), as well as several duos with Jimmy Raney ("Jim And I" 1979) and Wolfgang Lackerschmid ("Live Highlights" 1992).
There´s an early picture with Zoller and a HiFi-Six-Thinline. His first official Framus guitar, which he received from the boss Fred Wilfer himself, was the De Luxe 60 that had an additional De Armond pickup and no metal pickguard. This De Luxe 60 (model number 5/160) had an engraving on its tailpiece that read "Atilla Zoller", which made it clear that it was a signature variant. It was Framus" top model of the early sixties and had outstanding resonance characteristics. Later came the more modern AZ-10 and AZ-9.
