Introducing Werner Müller & His Orchestra: Swinging 60s and Latin Sides

My interest in the music of Werner Müller was reignited with the chance purchase of the Japanese selection ‘The Very Best of Werner Müller’ (registration no. WPCR-14529, Warner Music Japan, 2011). Straightaway, the immediate connection was to the sound of the 60s – hip swaying, swinging with a pop beat that could go with the rhythms of the big city, or down South towards Latin America. On this compilation, Müller’s outstanding arrangements recall his contemporary Paul Mauriat’s signature productions from 1965 to 1969. 

The track listing is guaranteed to get you up and about on the floor even if you had initially intended to ‘lounge about’ the sofa! ‘Pepito’ evokes the dancing girls, then ‘Frenesi’ delights you with touches of a Latin big band with strings…imagining quickly that ‘Love is Blue’ with a solid trumpet lead….the carnival continues red hot with ‘Little Brown Jug’ from the 1940s big band era, winding its way through ‘The Pearl Fishers’, Tom Jones’ ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’, and while ‘Waiting for a Sunrise’, you’ll have to stopover in ‘Tico Tico’, ‘Trumpet Blues’ territory, ‘Brazil’ and ‘Begin the Beguine’, marveling at ‘What a Wonderful World’ in the relaxed mood of Horst Fischer’s trumpet playing beautifully with the Werner Müller  strings…all before you bring your listening to a close.

1.Pepito

2.Frenesi

3. Love Is Blue

4. Little Brown Jug

5. Der Dritte Mann (The Third Man)

6. The Pearl Fishers

7. Jalousie

8 Green, Green Grass Of Home

9. Red Roses for A Blue Lady

10. The World is Waiting For a Sunrise

11. Tico Tico

12. Trumpet Blues

13.Mack The Knife

14.Yesterday

15. (Mozart’s) Symphony No.40 1st Movement

16. The Typewriter

17. Brazil

18. Begin The Beguine

19. A Man And A Woman

20. What A Wonderful World

21. The Farewell Trumpet

Tying in with the hip 60s beat is Dutton Vocalion’s reissue of Werner’s TROPICAL NIGHTS and HITS IN COLOR LPs from 1961 and 1960 respectively in 2014 as CDLK4510.

Tropical Nights
The original LP SLK 16191 (1961) STEREO

1. Delicado (Azevedo; Lawrence) Baion
2. Amapola (Lacalle; Gamse) Cha-cha
3. Fiesta Tropicana (Müller) Cha-cha
4. The Peanut Vendor (Simons; Sunshine; Gilbert) Baion
5. Spanish Harlem (Leiber; Spector) Bolero
6. Mañana (Lee; Barbour) Samba
7. In a Little Spanish Town (Wayne; Lewis; Young) Mambo
8. Adios (Madriguera; Woods) Beguine
9. O’Cangacéiro (Nascimento) Baion
10. Poinciana (Simon; Bernier) Tango
11.Taboo (Lecuona; Russell) Rumba
12. Quizás, Quizás, Quizás (Farrés; Davis) Beguine

Top Hits in Color
The original LP SLK 16171 (1960) STEREO

13.Love Letters in the Sand (Coots; C & N Kenny)
14.Venus (Marshall)
15. I Miss You So (Scott; Henderson; Robin)
16. Amor (Ruiz; Mendez; Skylar)
17.A Fool Such as I (Trader)
18.Tammy (Livingston; Evans)
19.It’s Not For Me to Say (Allen; Stillman)
20.My Prayer (Boulanger; Kennedy)
21.Chances Are (Allen; Stillman)
22.I Almost Lost My Mind (Hunter)
23.Easy to Love (Porter)
24.The Hawaiian Wedding Song (King; Hoffman; Manning)
25.It’s All in the Game (Dawes; Sigman) 26.All the Way (Van Heusen; Cahn)

These rare LPs ooze Latin nostalgia and record a style of string arrangement that had been largely lost when current film soundtrack composers attempted to reproduce the 1960s in the 1990s and later. Latin instrumentals, under Werner’s baton, divide themselves into manifold styles on the ballroom floor. Tropical nights – as the name of the first LP suggests – are also dance nights. I am not a professional student of Latin American dances, but Müller does a superb job of distinguishing ‘Quizas’ from ‘Spanish Harlem’ and ‘Amapola’. They all have a beat and are a sure thrill to listen to, while also puzzling over how differently the left and right feet are to move on the floor. That said, this music that is also evocative of Edmundo Ros, the Clebanoff Strings, Xavier Cugat, Perez Prado and Manuel and his Music of the Mountains under a balmy tropical night…but with more intense shades of color. Müller occasionally inserts a wordless female, and male (‘O Cangaceiro’), chorus to add a flavor of exotica. Then there are strategic flourishes of 1960s style surfin’ guitar plucking a la songs like ‘Verde’ and ‘Wheels’ to add a little period magic – like on ‘Adios’! So there you have an early ‘orchestral easy’ formula: strings, percussion and voice set to a ‘groove’. Although, the second LP from 1960 is not strictly Latin, it’s pop beat shades off nicely from TROPICAL NIGHTS. I highly recommend these remasters especially because they are contemporaries of the early Mauriat and Caravelli arrangements. Although there will be space for a separate review of Caravelli’s music, I would note here that ILD records of France have produced a very admirable remaster of two recordings under Monsieur Caravelli’s early name ‘Caravelli and his Magic Violins’ under the two-LP-in-one format with the title C'est joli la mer in February 2013. A sample of the tracks in C'est joli la mer are as follows:

Amour, tango et tambourin - Le comédien - Y' aura toujours - Paillasse - C'est pas sérieux - La marmite - La chansonnette - C'est joli la mer - Les guitares du diable - Les printemps d'aujourd'hui - Jouez mariachis - Sifflez en travaillant du film "Blanche Neige et les 7 nains" - Les filles de Copenhague - Sans toi - Caterina - Notre escalier - La musique - Le restaurant chinois - Welcome home to my heart - Chanson d'Argentine - Brasilia mon amour - I can't stop loving you - Fallait-il ? - Guitare et copains

Like Caravelli, Werner Müller made his name on the ballroom dance scene. From what is available on the Internet, Müller was the conductor and arranger for the RIAS radio and TV station orchestra and subsequently, the WDR orchestra, both very well known in Germany. Bert Kaempfert also sported a similar career trajectory – he learnt from the American dance bands that were popularized in the immediate post-World War Two period when the US and Allied forces occupied the country and gradually restored normalcy. US and other ‘world/pop culture’ influences were introduced in a massive way into German popular culture. Well, one might say that Werner Müller represented one synthesis, Kaempfert, and James Last, even Kai Warner, Berry Lipman and Kurt Edelhagen serve as other interesting variations of easy listening from Germany. Enjoy!

AC

November 2014