“Play it again, Fips!”

On the occasion of Bert Kaempfert’s 80th birthday, friends and former companions honoured the memory of the late international music star.

At an exclusive gala held on Thursday, 16 October 2003, former musical companions, friends and relatives honoured the memory of the composer Bert Kaempfert. “Fips”, as he was wont to be called by his friends, would have been eighty on this day, in remembrance of which, Kaempfert’s daughter Doris had invited everyone to the Stage Club at Hamburg’s Neue Flora music theatre.

The guest list read like an extract from the Who’s Who of light music over the past fifty years: not only band leaders such as James Last, the jazz pianist, composer and singer Paul Kuhn, singer Greetje Kauffeld and trumpeter Peter Beil but also former members of the orchestra such as Ack van Rooyen, Jiggs Whigham and Ladi Geisler.

For Paul Kuhn, already a living legend himself, this was “an important day”. “He was one of the few Germans who managed to make it big in the States, and I’ve always loved his music,” said the 75-year-old, who, however, never managed to meet Kaempfert in person. Instead, he brought to the gala a special birthday gift: a CD he had recently produced, compiled at Doris Kaempfert’s request, containing evergreens in “a somewhat revitalized, fresher style”, as Kuhn said. And he put into words what many were thinking: “It’s just such a shame that Fips died so young.”

There is, though, some consolation at least for James Last, an old and close friend of Kaempfert’s from the early days, in the fact that “his melodies are so original still today that one cannot imagine life without them.” For the now 74-year-old Last, Fips was not only one of the greatest in the entertainment business but “was an intuitive perfectionist, he was simply laid-back.” Although he and Kaempfert invariably used to be portrayed in public as rivals, James “Hansi” Last says they had a very firm friendship and recalls: “Precisely because we represented two quite different trends in music, we talked a lot about it.”

For the Supervisory Board Chairman of GEMA (Germany’s Music Authors’ Society), Professor Christian Bruhn, who delivered the eulogy, Kaempfert embodied “sound craftsmanship and musical honesty” and as a composer was a “sorcerer of sequences” whose melodies touched people’s hearts. He “established the Kaempfert sound” in America and, as famous as he became, remained a modest person nonetheless. (Click here to read the eulogy.)

Even Hamburg’s Deputy Mayor, Mario Mettbach, admitted to being a fan of the former international star musician: “Who hasn’t danced to his melodies? His songs were a must and in dancing class obligatory.” Mettbach came to the birthday party with the assurance that there was to be a square named after Bert Kaempfert in the Hamburg district of Barmbek where the composer was born. This, he said, had been agreed upon by the Senate, an announcement that met with applause all round. And just to make sure that this would not be forgotten, Doris Kaempfert presented the Deputy Mayor with a street sign bearing her father’s name.

On this evening, amid old photos from Kaempfert’s private life and his career as a composer, amid introductions, reunions and a wealth of music, friends and relatives revelled in memories of the international star. And you could sense they all had one wish in common: as the famous line in the film classic Casablanca goes, many may have been thinking: “Play it again, Fips!” And, in the end, this was done by “Paulchen” Kuhn and his well-known trio together with solo contributions from Ack van Rooyen, Jiggs Whigham, Ladi Geisler and singer Greetje Kauffeld in celebration of the late artist’s 80th birthday.

Michael Best
ddp news agency correspondent (excerpts)
Photos Copyright Bert Kaempfert Music