A Record a Week: Bert Kaempfert - ...Love That Bert Kaempfert

SIDE 1.
CARAVAN
LONELY IS THE NAME
AGAIN
STEPPIN' PRETTY
I SHOULD CARE

SIDE 2.
JUST AS MUCH AS EVER
THE FIRST WALTZ
MY LOVE FOR YOU
THE GLORY OF LOVE
THE SHEIK OF ARABY
EVERY TIME I DREAM OF YOU

Since many (or all) of his covers are in this style, I always expected Kaempfert to be either a surfy-love song type or at least a crooner. I suppose if I saw the 'and his orchestra' I would've narrowed it down to crooner. I suppose none of that matters, since it's actually jazz. Easy listening jazz, at that; the farthest thing from what I thought it was.

Once I got past the mismatch of cover and content, I was able to focus solely on the music. While easy listening or 'smooth jazz' lacks the punch that I usually enjoy from music, I was able to set that aside and hear the quality of the music being played. He was obviously excellent at gathering and conducting musicians to execute both the classics and his own compositions, as this record shows.

Before his early (56) death in 1980, he was a renowned band leader and composer. I suppose the aging population mixed with the number of his records sold made this inevitable, but it's sad to know that someone of this caliber can be in the 'guaranteed find' pile at value village alongside Englebert Humperdinck.