Volker Kriegel (24 December 1943 – 14 June 2003)^[1] was a German jazz guitarist and composer who was a founding member of the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble. He was also an author and a cartoonist.

Kriegel was born in Darmstadt on 24 December 1943.^[2] He began to play the guitar at the age of 15.^[2]

Kriegel studied sociology with Theodor Adorno, but in 1962 was already playing in a band with Albert and Emil Mangelsdorff in Frankfurt, and abandoned his studies.^[2][3] He was then in a fusion band led by an American expatriate, vibraphonist Dave Pike, and recorded the album Noisy Silence – Gentle Noise (1969).^[3] Simultaneously, Kriegel started Spectrum and 1975 the Mild Maniac Orchestra.^[3] He recorded the album Keep on Driving (MPS, 1970) with Don "Sugarcane" Harris, then signed with MPS and released the jazz-rock album Spectrum (1971).^[3] Five years later he started the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble, a shifting collective which at various times included Charlie Mariano, Albert Mangelsdorff, Ack van Rooyen, and Barbara Thompson.^[3] In 1977 Kriegel co-founded the label Mood Records, which released his own music and that of the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble.^[2]

Kriegel drifted from music and started writing children's books.^[3] "During the 1990s, he ceased his activities as a leader and concentrated instead on working as a composer and on his longstanding second career as a cartoonist; his illustrations appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, and animated films."^[2] Manchmal ist es besser, man sagt gar nix, a book containing some of his cartoons and writings on jazz and other topics, was published in 1998.^[2] He reunited the Ensemble for a tour in 2002.^[3] He died of cancer^[3] in Spain on 15 June 2003.^[2]

• Carr, Ian; Fairweather, Digby; Priestley, Brian. Jazz: The Rough Guide, Penguin, 1995, ISBN 1-85828-137-7