With twelve years of age, his arms were naturally still too short to extend the trombone slide fully. Not only was the physical process of maturing long from concluded when Nils Wogram started studying at Braunschweiger Konservatorium in 1984, he still had all the time in the world to grow into the upcoming artistic responsibilities. Today Wogram has a family and has exchanged Cologne, his former home of choice, for Zurich. The wonder boy has become a multitalent who regularly extends the physiological limitations of playing trombone. He continues to find new means of expression, tone colors, and above all techniques for the whole range between composition and improvisation, tradition and avant-garde.

With the trombone, Nils Wogram persistently livens things up in jazz but also far beyond jazz. The man born in Braunschweig is the only worthy successor of Albert Mangelsdorff amongst German trombonists. AS a musician with an all-round education, who has his roots in the classics and in Neue Musik, there are no models that he could not morph into one another. Folklore and acid jazz, pop and bebop, Luciano Berio, swing and blues—that is approximately the terrain in which Wogram moves about. In this he is never alone. To transform musical clichés into forms never heard before, he has gathered a permanent group of similarly minded musicians around him; with six constant formations he has recorded countless CDs. He started with the two duos that he formed with the Russian pianist Simon Nabatov and the trombonist Conny Bauer, went on to the organ trio Nostalgia and quartet Root 70, and then to the Nils Wogram Septett. “Each band has its own sound and all band members have their own special themes,” says Wogram. “Similar to what Ellington, Mingus, and Miles did with their bands, I want to put musicians into new contexts with that which they do particularly well. I am fascinated by bands that stay together for a long time and develop their own language.”

To become a leader and chameleon in jazz, internationally in demand, it is not enough to nurture one’s talent. People must also be open for it. Fortunately that was the case with Nils Wogram early on in life. After he won the first prize in the competition Jugend musiziert (Youth Making Music), Peter Herbozimmer invited him one year later to participate in his Bundesjugendjazzorchester (German National Youth Jazz Orchestra). In 1992 a grant enabled him to hone his craft in New York under musicians such as Steve Turre and Maria Schneider for two years. Since then Wogram has performed at many international festivals and worked with such leading lights as Gunter Hampel, Illinois Jacquet, and Tomasz Stanko.

In the meantime he continued to receive as acknowledgement and motivation renowned prizes including the Jazz-Förderpreis of the Land North Rhine-Westphalia.