Friedrich Rumpelhuber, born in 1950, a real child of 1968 and unassimilated listener, discovered avant garde jazz in the mid-1970s and documented it in his comprehensive photo work. It was the end of free jazz and »Rumpo« photographed out of passion, not for commercial purposes. This passion is very clear in his pictures, even for the jazz greats: Rumpelhuber documented such events as the »Free Music Days« in Lungau, Salzburg 1977, at the request of Friedrich Gulda. At such jazz festivals as Montreux, North Sea, Wiesen, Saalfelden and Vienna he produced close-ups of the idols held in high esteem by the young, progressive, avant garde audience: Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Miles Davis, Carla Bley, Jan Garbarek, David Liebman, Keith Jarrett, Gato Barbieri, Joe Zawinul – they were all captured by Rumpelhuber’s magical lens and preserved for ever as »optical vinyl«. Friedrich Rumpelhuber currently runs a successful graphic design agency in Vienna.