Hazy Osterwald Jet Set

I found this album as I did most of my records — for a buck at a thrift store down in Phoenix somewhere. But I had not idea how dear it was until recently when one of my fellow deejays at LuxuriaMusic told me he’d give his life for it. Seems its lead off track, “Swinging London,” was included on the second volume of “The In-Kraut,” a popular series of groovy German pop obscurities from the sixties and seventies. Oddly enough, this album doesn’t appear to have found its way onto any of the share sites on my short list. Either nobody else has it, or the blogosphere has issued a collective thumbs down on this album. Either way, I quickly passed it along to my friend — and his life was spared. And since the links are still good, I figured I pass them along to everyone here.

This is a terrific two record set. I’ve played several tracks on my own LuxuriaMusic show. Hopefully, listeners will find it enjoyable enough to overlook the fact that the first track from side four is screwed up. Perhaps someone else will crawl out of the woodwork and present me with a better copy. I’d be much obliged.

Marina Records, the label that released the “In-Kraut” series has a perfectly concise back story for Hazy Osterwald. And since the last couple of weeks have been kind of hectic (not one but two air conditioner breakdowns, two vehicles in the shop, and a storm that blew 85-miles-per-hour winds through town, causing millions of dollars in damage and demolishing thousands of trees — including one of mine), you’ll have to forgive me if I lift a paragraph directly from the Marina site:

“…one of Switzerland’s most successful music exports, and surely one of Europe’s hardest working men in showbiz. Starting out with the Hazy Osterwald Sextet way back in 1949, he constantly toured the globe - often playing up to 300 dates a year. He appeared in movies, scored huge hits (“Kriminaltango”, 1959), ran his own record label (Mabel) and even owned a string of nightclubs (Hazyland). Though his first love was swing (writing arrangements for Teddy Stauffer as a teenager!), he always kept in with The In-Kraut. After a couple of line-up changes he even renamed his sextet to the more “now”-sounding Hazy Osterwald Jet Set - and cut such cool tunes as “Swinging London.” Osterwald’s fantastic band - honed to perfection by constant live engagements - delivers a true knock-out performance. The Jet Set included John Ward (drums), Curt Prina (organ), Bob Glower (saxophone), Peter Meller (guitar), Franco Bussmann (bass) and Hazy himself on trumpet.”

Visit BOSTWORLD to listen to this album

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