Karl Hans Berger (March 30, 1935 – April 9, 2023) was a German-American jazz pianist, vibraphonist, composer, and educator.
[2] He studied musicology and sociology at the Free University of Berlin, achieving a doctoral degree in 1963 with a dissertation on music in Sowjet ideology.
[1][4] Berger worked with drummers Ed Blackwell and Jack DeJohnette, bassist Dave Holland, and saxophonists Ornette Coleman, Lee Konitz and Ivo Perelman.
[1] He worked further with Michael Bisio,[1] Anthony Braxton and Baba Olatunji,[5] as well as with Carla Bley, Bill Laswell[6] John McLaughlin and Roswell Rudd,[1] and with the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra,[7] As musical arranger and conductor, he contributed to albums by Better Than Ezra,[8] Buckethead,[9] Jeff Buckley,[10] Angélique Kidjo, Natalie Merchant and Rich Robinson, among others.
[1][4] The focus of CMS was "teaching improvising musicians to develop their own aesthetics, and to draw and mesh ideas from across genres, traditions, and international borders".