FM
Biography
"Music is the expression of the time we live in: the expression of noise, hectic, aggression but also of beauty and love?" This is what the guitar-player and composer Toto Blanke says about his music which he tries to realize with different groups like "Electric Circus" or the guitar-duo "Duel for two guitars." In 1970 Toto decided to give up his profession as a graduate in architecture in favour of only working as a professional musician. With his first group, "Association P.C." Toto made many tours in Europe, Asia and Africa. He played on nearly all the important European festivals and in 1971 he established his international reputation on the "Berliner Jazztage". Within five years this group recorded seven LPs, one of them with the American flute player Jeremy Steig. In 1975 Toto recorded his first album "Spider's Dance", Phonogram, with Joachim Kühn, Charly Mariano, John Lee and Gerry Brown. In the meantime he gave duo-concerts with Philip Catherine and Jasper van't Hof. LPs with van't Hof, Rolf and Joachim Kühn, Randy Brecker and others were released at that time, too.
It was the "Baden Baden New Jazzmeeting 1976" where Toto founded his first "Electric Circus" group with Jasper van't Hof and the Finnish drummer Edward Vesala. In the same year the first Electric Circus LP was recorded. It was described by international critics as ?a milestone in the history of Jazz and contemporary music of the eighties. In 1978 Toto Blanke was sent to Perugia, Italy, by ARD to represent the Federal Republic of Germany at the EBU concert.A new LP was released: "Tales of Tomorrow", Bellaphone, and Toto and Charly Mariano made an extremely successful tour through the former GDR which was repeated one year later.
