[ Bio ]

 

@ CD Blues Café (Beijing 2010)

Guitarist & composer Werner Tian Fischer grew up at the foot of the Swiss Alps a little while before video killed the radio star. Over the years he was educated at the Hot Club de Jazz in Lisbon, the Swiss Jazz School in Berne and at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

During the 1990s he fronted the platinum-selling folk-pop-group STARFISH before expanding his musical horizon on the North American East Coast. In 2007 he initiated the SAM TRUEMPY MEMORIAL JAZZ COALITION, a transatlantic Jazz Octet.

In 2010/11 Werner resided as house guitarist at the legendary CD Blues Café in Beijing and regularly performed with the 'Big John Blues Band' as well as the 'Beijing Jungle Big Band'. He went on tour with his jazz unit TRAVELOGUE in China and Europe - featuring Swedish singer Sophie Dunér - to promote their seminal album "Chinese Soul" (Altrisuoni AS 292). Their latest record "The Light Is On" was released in spring 2016
on PBR Jazz (PBR J300)

Between 2004 and 2014 he frequently toured the People's Republic of China: Heilongjiang & Beijing in 2004; Beijing Olympic Games in 2008; MIDI Festivals in Beijing & Shanghai in 2011; Beijing International Blues Festival in 2011, 2012, 2013 (with guitarist Shun Kikuta) & 2014; Grammy All Stars in Chengdu in 2013; The Ordos World Music Carnival (Inner Mongolia) & The Xixia Music Festivals in Zhongwei & Yinchuan (Ningxia) in 2014 (with The Big John Blues Band).
In June 2013 he was part of the backing band led by Zhang Ling that played a spectacular show in the sold-out Olympic Stadium in Chengdu. At the 'Grammy All Stars Night' they peformed with Diane Schuur, Pattie Austin, Yolanda Adams, Jody Watley, Shawn Colvin, Rodney Crowell, Richard Marx, Leo Sayer, Michael Bolton, Song Zuying, Tan Jing & Lang Lang.

Werner achieves his warm and sensual trademark sound by playing his Gibson L5 Wes Montgomery guitar with the aid of a pick made of semi-precious stone. His playing is most audibly influenced by Wes Montgomery, Ed Bickert and Philip Catherine on the jazzy, John Scofield, Albert King and Cornell Dupree on the more gutsy bluesy side.

He teaches at the Musikschule in Lucerne and has also published several books and articles on the History of Jazz in Switzerland and 'Chinese Soul', a pop novella about his Chinese experience.