Hazy Osterwald

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Hazy Osterwald (center), 1961

Hazy Osterwald (actually Rolf Erich Osterwalder; born February 18, 1922 in Bern ; † February 26, 2012 in Lucerne ) was a Swiss musician , singer and orchestra director . His best-known pieces include the “ Kriminal-Tango ” and “Konjektiven-Cha-Cha” ( “Go with the economy” ).

Life

Osterwald, the son of the national football player and accountant Adolf Osterwalder , who was also nicknamed Hazy, was more enthusiastic about football as a schoolboy and was excluded from piano lessons due to lack of practice. Classmates urged him to become a pianist in the school orchestra. In 1939 he became its director. From 1940 he attended the conservatory and learned composition and theory from Albert Moeschinger , as well as practicing the trumpet. In 1940, a year before his Matura , he arranged for the orchestra conductor Teddy Stauffer and others. In 1941 he played the trumpet in Fred Böhler's band , from 1942 under the stage name "Hazy Osterwald". In 1944 he played piano and trumpet for the "Original Teddies" of saxophonist Eddie Brunner , Stauffer's successor, but in the same year he founded his own eight-person combo with singer Kitty Ramon . On September 1, 1944, the first engagement came in Dancing Chikito in Bern. The expansion into a big band turned out to be too expensive, and so he founded his sextet on May 1, 1949, following the example of Svend Asmussen , with whom he played at the Festival International 1949 de Jazz in Paris that same year , where greats like Charlie Parker and Sidney Bechet performed.

Hazy Osterwald sextet

The Hazy Osterwald Sextet, 1961

After appearances in Europe, the Americans engaged the sextet as Hazy Osterwald USO show (O for Overseas) in 1951. Shortly thereafter, in 1952, a six-month contract to Beverly Hills was rejected by the American Musicians' Union. The sextet focused again on Europe and played in Stockholm, Lisbon and Arosa, among others. In 1953 the first German radio production took place at the NWDR in Hamburg, the first recordings followed for the Austrian Austroton. In 1954, the Hazy Osterwald sextet appeared in the German television film A Little, Big Trip . In 1955 it received a record deal with Polydor and made recordings with the Cologne producers Heinz Gietz and Kurt Feltz . In 1957 and 1958 they played to a sold out house at the Paris Olympia .

The "Hazy Osterwald Sextet" initially included Ernst Höllerhagen (clarinet), Sunny Lang (bass), Gil Cuppini (drums), Pierre Cavalli (guitar) and Francis Burger (piano). Later members included Dennis Armitage (saxophone), Curt Prina (piano), Peter Beil (trumpet), Lars Blach and John Ward (drums). They were very successful, not least because of their funny stage show. About their success story, the music film The Hazy Osterwald Story with Gustav Knuth , Eddie Arent and Peer Schmidt was made by Franz Josef Gottlieb in 1961 . It is based on a biography by Walter Grieder published in 1961 . In the sextet, Osterwald acted in personal union as trumpeter, pianist, vibraphonist, band leader, composer, lyricist, choreographer, arranger, director and producer.

Record career

Single criminal tango , 1959
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Rebel Rouser
  DE 26th 01/01/1959 (4 weeks)
Criminal Tango
  DE 4th 10/01/1959 (24 weeks)
Panopticon
  DE 33 01/01/1960 (8 weeks)
Business Cha-Cha
  DE 40 03/01/1961 (8 weeks)
La Pachanga (with Audrey Arno)
  US 87 04/17/1961 (2 weeks)

In 1957 Heliodor released an LP entitled Das ist Rhythmus . Their first single with Polydor was released in October 1959 and immediately became a hit: the crime tango . It was a cover version of the Italian original by Piero Trombetta, who wrote the music for the Italian text Kriminal Tango by Aldo Locatelli (Columbia SCMQ # 1202), published in August 1959. The German text was written by Kurt after some resistance from the band Feltz written and produced and arranged by Heinz Gietz . While the original reached eighth place in the Italian charts, Osterwald's version got to number one in the Swiss, Austrian and German charts, where it stayed for three weeks. The single (Polydor # 24048), with six musicians on the B-side, was sold 900,000 times in Germany and had a total of one million copies. Jazz musicians Dennis Armitage , Werner Dies , Curt Prina and others initially believed that the title did not meet the band's standard. But they were then convinced by Heinz Gietz's arrangement. Above all, drummer John Ward, who was allowed to fire the shot several times in the song, "really enjoyed it".

In February 1960, the title Panoptikum followed , but just like the third single Konjektiven-Cha-Cha in February 1961, it only took lower placements. In the United States, La Pachanga , which had been published in Germany as Wieder mal Paschanga (The Music from Caracas) , reached number 87 on the Billboard charts in 1961 . The Hazy Osterwald Sextet then accompanied the singer Audrey Arno .

TV career and later years

This was followed by the TV show « Do you love a show? »Directed by the young Michael Pflegehar , which was first broadcast on November 24, 1962 and has remained one of the most successful international television shows in Germany to this day, broadcast in 35 countries. Here Osterwald was presented in its own show. The last episode ran on March 16, 1963. Osterwald toured until 1979, now under the name Hazy Osterwald Jetset . Among other things, they were the official band at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 and Innsbruck in 1976, as well as in numerous television programs. At the height of his career in the 1970s, Osterwald had his own record company and a number of nightclubs ( Hazyland ) in Switzerland, which he then had to sell when the public's taste ( discotheques ) changed. He then took a break from gigs until 1984 and then performed as a vibraphonist with Hazy Osterwald and the Entertainers , but turned back to jazz.

In 2005, Osterwald donated a considerable part of his private collection, including original scores, personal documents, photos and concert recordings, to the International Jazz Archive in Eisenach .

Private

Osterwald was married three times: from 1951 to Käthe Marga Maschetzke, who died in 1965, then from 1966 to Ema Damia (the marriage was divorced in 1979) and from 1985 to the actress Eleonore Mathilde Schmid. He was the father of four children.

In 1999 he published his autobiography . On the occasion of his 90th birthday it was announced that he had been dependent on a wheelchair for some time as a result of Parkinson's disease, which had existed since 1992 . Hazy Osterwald lived in Lucerne until his death in February 2012.

Prizes and awards

In 1974 Osterwald was awarded the Prix ​​Walo , in 2001 the Honorary Prix Walo.

On June 27, 2009 he received the Swiss Jazz Lifetime Achievement Award at JazzAscona for his life's work .

Filmography (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Hazy Osterwald  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary
  2. ↑ https://books.google.de/books?id=ke5FDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=Eine+kleine,+grosse+Reise+hazy+osterwald&source=bl&ots=kB1AD_L5w0&sig=ACfU3U3ojiNtLVI6fupEuGW5nZzztPrhoA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxu-Chq5rqAhUR6qQKHZNABPQQ6AEwA3oECA8QAQ#v= onepage & q = A% 20small% 2C% 20grossse% 20treise% 20hazy% 20osterwald & f = false
  3. ↑ The Hazy Osterwald Story. Description in: Schweizer Fernsehen , accessed on March 4, 2012
  4. ↑ Note from Spiegel online , accessed on March 21, 2012.
  5. ↑ Chart sources: DE US
  6. ↑ SWR4 - Escapades to the criminal tango
  7. ↑ Hazy Osterwald, interview with the Neue Luzerner Zeitung from September 21, 2009.
  8. ↑ Gabriela Schöb, article Hazy Osterwald, Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz
  9. ^ Swiss musician Hazy Osterwald has died. In: Der Standard from February 28, 2012
  10. ↑ Hazy Osterwald: "My entire fortune is gone!"
  11. ↑ Hazy Osterwald - He's still hoping for a miracle
  12. ↑ «For many it was 'negro music'». Interview in: Berner Zeitung from June 25, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Osterwald, Hazy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Osterwalder, Rolf Erich (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss pop singer and jazz band leader
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 2012
Place of death Lucerne