Description

This is the first presentation of a lost jazz concert from the Helmut Brandt estate, recorded March 1963 at SFB Sendesaal/ Haus des Rundfunks in West Berlin. That evening the “Helmut Brandt Orchestra” consisted of eleven soloists from the Berlin radio orchestras of RIAS and SFB, including Benny Bailey, Herb Geller, Nat Peck and Ack van Rooyen. They played a one-off concert of mostly unknown compositions, taped by producer Hans Gertberg for inclusion in the huge archive of NDR Jazz Workshop recordings at “Norddeutscher Rundfunk” in Hamburg.

Tunes like “Boogie Waltz” or “Opus C-Moll 794” are presented here for the first time ever, as well as Brandt’s outstanding “Ferien-Suite” in six movements. This orchestral piece evokes five musical pictures from an imagined holiday trip, culminating in the sixth movement “Photoalbum” – a reprise of the previous five arrangements. “Berlin Calling” uses the motif of a well-known WWII era BBC radio program of the same name. “Trifi” and “Stellar” had never been recorded before and were composed by Ack van Rooyen’s brother Jerry, who moved to Berlin two years later to become leader of the SFB Orchestra.