THE BERTLANDERS-STARBAND, Yah-dah!, 1958
Posted: June 12, 2014 Filed under: 60s, Berlin Records, Germany, Jazz Records 4 Comments
Found this in the 50 cent bin of a local thrift store recently. Sleeveless, but still in okay condition. Here´s all the information that I could find about this mysterious, completely forgotten group.
– Bert Landers was a Berlin band leader who recorded a great number of records for various German labels, but mainly for the budget Tip. He also recorded under the name of Berth von Landers und sein High Society Orchester. I assume that The Bertlanders-Starband is actually the studio orchestra of Bert Landers in one of its earliest formations.
– The Bertlanders-Starband are: Heinz Wulfestieg – trumpet; Karl Wolfgang Wiesenthal – trumpet; Bert Button – trombone; Dieter Siebert – alto-sax; Volkmar Schmidt – tenor-sax, Detlev Clausen – piano; Joachim Gilow – bass; Kurt Giese – drums
– Trumpeter Heinz Wulfestieg (1936–1977) was a half-brother of actress Hildegard Knef.
– Alto-Saxophonist Dieter Siebert might be identical with 20th-century classical music composer Wilhelm Dieter Siebert (1931-2011). His Wiki-resume mentions that he played Jazz in the late 50s.
– I further assume that Volkmar Schmidt is saxophonist, clarinetist and orchestra leader of East-German groups Gruppe Schmidt, Schulz & Co., Orchester Volkmar Schmidt and Volkmar Schmidt Combo.
– Drummer Kurt Giese later became a producer for North German radio (NDR) and arranged Chet Baker´s “Last Great Concert” in 1988 in Hannover, two weeks before Baker´s death.
– Trumpet solo on Franz Grothe´s Mitternachts-Blues by Karl Wolfgang “Charley” Wiesenthal.
These four tracks, exclusively recorded by Opera – Europäischer Phonoclub, have not been reissued in 50 years.
Yah-dah! is a nicely up-dated version of one of the earliest Jazz recordings,Yah-de-dah, first recorded in 1917 by the Frisco Jass Band.
THE BERTLANDERS-STARBAND, Yah-dah!, 1958
THE BERTLANDERS-STARBAND, Who´s sorry now, 1958
THE BERTLANDERS-STARBAND, Tequila, 1958
THE BERTLANDERS-STARBAND, Mitternachts-Blues, 1958
About me:
My name is Andreas Michalke. I´m a cartoonist from Berlin, Germany and I like collecting records. Most of the records I find in thrift stores or at flea markets here in Berlin. I like a lot of music but I thought I`d focus on odd German records. Preferably with cartoon covers.
All my scans are high-resolution. If you double-click on them they will get much bigger.
Berlin Beatet Bestes 
Funny! I posted an amateur Jazz sampler from 1958 a few days ago. And the Bertlanders were part of the line-up.
Maybe you would like to have a listen > http://898j7zaqe7.1fichier.com/
Cheers!
Thanks a lot for the music and the scans! And the information! It still seems odd to me though, that the Bertlanders were an amateur jazz band from Berlin, while Bert Landers and his orchestra were a studio group. Maybe it´s because, as Joachim E. Berendt writes in the liner notes of “Amateur-Jazz-Festival ´58”, the Bertlanders “accentuated arrangement and composition”. Their clarinetist and alto-saxophonist Dieter Siebert was voted best arranger of the festival. High technical abilities often lead musicians from amateur to a more commercial work.
But of course, the biggest question still remains: Who was Bert Landers?
I found your site because I was looking for “The Bertlanders”, an amateur band I saw and heard at a fasching night somewhere between 1957 and 1959 at the Technical University of Berlin where I was studying at this time. As I heard, the name of the band was a combination of the leader’s name Dieter Siebert and “Lullaby of Birdland”. Dieter Siebert was at that time studying clarinet at the music high school in Berlin and has been a professional musician later on.
Thank you very much for this nice remembrance!
Heinz Baumann
Hi y’all!
First of all, thanks for all your research and information on this, it’s so hard to come by after all this time..
As a daughter of drummer Kurt Giese, I found this site while looking for information on his recordings :-)
As to why this band called themselves amateur – well, my father still went to school at the time, so was definitely not a professional yet! Maybe that applies for some of the others as well? Just thinking…
Have a nice evening!
Rebecca