Attilla Zoller; Guitarist Who Founded Vermont Jazz Center

Attilla Zoller, 70, jazz guitarist who founded the Vermont Jazz Center. A native of Visegrad, Hungary, Zoller learned classical violin from his father and played fluegelhorn in the high school band. At 18, Zoller became interested in jazz bass and guitar and played in the jazz clubs of Budapest. Escaping Russian blockading of Hungarian borders in 1948, Zoller walked across the mountains to Austria, carrying only his guitar case. He worked in Vienna and then Germany for many years, earning the 1962 Bundespreis for composing the score for the film “The Bread of Our Early Years.” American jazz artists such as Lee Konitz and Oscar Pettiford persuaded Zoller to move to New York in 1959. He performed at the original Newport Jazz Festival, recorded such albums as “Gypsy Cry” and “Dream Bells,” and won Downbeat International Critics Poll awards in 1964 and 1973. He set up the Attila Zoller Jazz Clinics in 1974 and turned that into the Vermont Jazz Center in 1985 in Brattleboro, Vt. On Sunday in Townshend, Vt., of colon cancer.