Eddie Sauter’s Music Time (CD, Jazzhaus)

Eddie Sauter, who was originally a trumpeter and joined Benny Goodman’s team of experts after joining Red Norvo, had taken over the orchestra at Südwestfunk (SWF) in 1957 as the successor to Kurt Edelhagen. For the first time in his career he had the freedom to lead a jazz big band without a co-leader, which was a great opportunity, but also a great challenge. In 1959 he returned to the USA to demonstrate his talent for transparently designed presence with Stan Getz’s album Focus (1961) and film music works. In his music, Sauter managed to transfer the cool reduction of the bebop hustle and bustle into large form without appearing cool. The broadcast concert series Eddie Sauter s Music Time became the podium for his experiments. The recordings from the SWR archive were made in the winter of 1957/58 in Freiburg and Kaiserslautern, among other places, and document a program with a lot of American humor that kept the balance between standards, originals and experiments.