Bert Kaempfert went on tour in November 1979, giving fourteen concerts before packed houses in Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland. In addition to his orchestra, its outstanding soloists and the Botho Lucas Choir, Bert Kaempfert invited the eminently likeable Swedish singer Sylvia Vrethammar to join them as guest star. Not only did this exceptional jazz vocalist perform his compositions in precisely the way he had envisaged but so successful was the tour that it would be continued in England the following June.

This had all been preceded by a televised public concert which, produced by Hessen Radio, was given on 20 June of that year in Neu-Isenburg’s Hugenottenhalle and which, on Easter Sunday 1980, was then broadcast by ARD in a version edited down to sixty minutes. Bert Kaempfert saw this television production as an opportunity to bring out an LP for the tour with a selection of twelve items from the concert programme, yet this now historic recording of the concert was never processed and released in its entirety. And so Peter Klemt, who as sound engineer worked with Bert Kaempfert for more than twenty years recording all his productions, once again took up his place at the mixing console.

So that, at long last, the full-length version of “the concert highlight of the year”, as it was hailed by the press of the day, is available for the very first time, with the musical items following the selfsame sequence that Bert Kaempfert devised for the concert.

And, last but not least, 2008 will be the 85th anniversary of Bert Kaempfert’s birthday on 16 October, and it is to this fabulous musician and all his loyal fans that the present recording is dedicated.

Author and journalist Bernd Matheja (i.a., 1000 Nadelstiche, Listen Reich) has documented the history of this extraordinary musician, his musical influences and his personal achievements in an extensive 28-page portrait, including many photos, some of which taken from the Kaempfert family archives.

In memoriam

Bert Kaempfert was like his music: quietly spoken. Despite all his tremendous successes internationally, he remained a modest person, and the innumerable awards did nothing to change this. In 1993 he was given the highest honour that can be accorded a composer: his posthumous induction into America’s Songwriters’ Hall of Fame.

Bernd Matheja

Long before the Liverpool sound even existed, it was Bert Kaempfert who, with My Bonnie, made the Beatles into recording stars – as early as 1960 preparing the ground for Paul McCartney, John Lennon & Co’s phenomenal international career: they partook of his knowledge, his skills and that creativity which he so undogmatically imparted.

The list of the solo artists who scored success after international success with Kaempfert’s distinctive compositions reads like a Who’s Who of light music: Frank Sinatra, Al Martino and Dean Martin. Ella Fitzgerald and Shirley Bassey. Sarah Vaughan and Peggy Lee. Nat “King” Cole, Herb Alpert and Johnny Mathis. Brenda Lee, Caterina Valente, Andy Williams and Nancy Wilson – to name but a few.

Quite simply, they all felt at ease with the melodies this Hamburg composer and arranger created, melodies as light and unforced as their construction was inspired. Whether intentionally or not, he clearly knew how to reproduce in his music the nature of the person he was: pleasant, unassuming and restrained – yet at the same time infectious, expressive and brimming with joie de vivre. In short, melodies that do you good.

The biography of the man whose ideas occupy a firm place in the annals of music history began more than eighty years ago in a working-class district of Hamburg.

In Marc Boettcher’s documentary we hear from Bert Kaempfert’s friends and companions, Freddy Quinn, Hildegard Knef and James Last, among others, as well as from members of the Kaempfert family.

DVD / MENUE:

• 1923 – 1945 Musikalische Anfänge / Musical Beginnings
• 1945 – 1959 Die Polydor-Jahre / The Polydor Years
• 1959 – 1963 Wonderland By Night
• 1963 – 1965 Der Kaempfert Sound / The Kaempfert Sound
• 1965 – 1968 Strangers In The Night
• 1968 – 1974 Krisenzeiten und Comeback / Crises and Comeback
• 1974 – 1980 Der Abschied / Farewell

In November 1979 Bert Kaempfert and his 40-strong orchestra went on tour together with the Botho Lucas Choir, performing for the first time in Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland before packed audiences at fourteen different venues and featuring soloists Ack van Rooyen on trumpet, Jiggs Whigham on trombone and Swedish jazz singer Sylvia Vrethammar.

This tour had been preceded by a concert given on 20 June in Neu-Isenburg’s Hugenottenhalle, which Hessen Radio happened to record for television, thus making it possible, ten years later, to transfer this now historic recording on to video disc. Requiring complex digital audio-master processing, the task was carried out in London’s Mayfair Studios by John Hudson, one of the world’s leading sound engineers. In April 1991 the video disc was replaced by a video cassette.

We are very pleased that “the concert event of the year”, as it was described in the press at that time, is now available on DVD.

On April 22, 1974, Bert Kaempfert went on stage with his great Orchestra for the first time in the venerable Royal Albert Hall in London, and gave two live concerts on the same day. Following a spectacular introduction, he greeted the audience with a simple “Good evening”. With his reserved, charming manner and his slightly faltering commentaries in English with American accent he won the hearts of the audience, who nevertheless immediately saw that Bert Kaempfert was a musician through and through. After just a few bars, he managed to fill the normally cool English audience with enthusiasm in both performances. The 7,000 people at each concert were enraptured, even in the boxes occupied by the aristocracy and prominent figures, where the ladies and gentleman normally only used to clap discreetly, there was lively applause that evening. Both performances were an unprecedented success.

Shortly afterwards, Polydor released the LP LIVE IN LONDON, including 12 songs from the concert. Due to other productions with Bert Kaempfert and his Orchestra in the years that followed, the second LP LIVE IN LONDON VOL. 2 that was planned at the time was subsequently forgotten. The complete recording of the concert lay unedited in the archive of tapes. On the occasion of Bert Kaempfert’s eightieth birthday, this legendary concert will be released in its entire length on this double CD by Polydor.

The sound engineer Peter Klemt went back to the sound mixer for the extensive editing of the tapes, since no-one knows the typical Kaempfert sound as well as the man who, together with Kaempfert himself, mixed down all his productions for over twenty years and was also there at the time in London in 1974.