Combo Capers

The Bert Kaempfert Collection (Vol. 16)

For once the arranger-bandleader Bert Kaempfert does not work with a large orchestra but emerges on this combo recording - set down in May 1960 in the Hamburg Musikhalle by the balance enginer Karle Hinze - as a formidable foe of the stale phrase and a sworn champion of the swingy sound. His stimulating musical ideas get a vigorous waxing in this album of international melodies, all lined up for a fresh-sounding dance party.

It is a varied line-up of happy, snappy arrangements of continental musical fare, just what Bert Kaempfert might have played in Hamburg's elegence Esplanade Hotel at thé dansant after the war, ranging from original compositions and arrangements of folk melodies to the popular Over the Waves so often heard during a circus trapeze act, to classical music and the Jolly Peasant - instantly recognized by every piano pupil - from Robert Schumann's Album for the Young, and Adolphe Adam's opera  Si j'étais roi. Whether you call it cosmopolitan, a colourful mixture, a "sound" experiment, or just plain zany, the outcome is the same: music that pleases!

Against the solid beat of the rhythm section (Helmut Brüsewitz resp. Carl-Heinz Greve on the bass, and Max Raths resp. Rolf Ahrens on the drums) are to be heard the terrific trombone breaks blown by Arno Schoen and the glorious guitar work of Walter Teubner. And that is not all! There is a special treat for all Bert Kaempfert fans, for the musician himself often appears as a soloist - not only on the piano but also as a brilliant clarinettist somewhat reminiscent of the two American past masters "Pee Wee" Russell and Sidney Bechet. In fact all the tunes are given an excitingly new treatment - the Kaempfert treatment!