NDR Bigband with Rainer Tempel

Guitarist Volker Kriegel was widely considered the father of European jazz-rock thanks to his influential stint with the Dave Pike Set as well as a subsequent series of pioneering solo LPs for the MPS label. In 1976 Kriegel co-founded the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble with a host of international musicians including Albert Mangelsdorff, American altoist Charlie Mariano, British saxophonist Barbara Thompson, and Dutch trumpeter Ack van Rooyen, among others. This sprawling, ever-rotating collective was the guitarist’s primary vehicle throughout the remainder of his performing career, which fell by the wayside in the years to follow as he turned his attention to other creative pursuits, most notably writing a series of well-received children’s books including Der Rock ’n’ Roll König (The Rock ’n’ Roll King), Olaf dem Elch (Olaf the Moose) and the story of Erwin mit der Tröte, a coati who uses his beak like a trumpet and has formed a band, the ‘Jungle Kings’ on an island near Zanzibar. He is just about to fall in love with lady-coati Rosa, when animal voices scientist Professor Higgins discovers Erwin and his talent. Instantly, greed turns the academic into an entrepreneur.

Higgins becomes his manager and sells and sends him on a worldwide tour … until Erwin is fed up with his newly acquired stardom. Garnished with a lot of side blows on the music industry for parents ‘in the know’, this is first and foremost hilarious entertainment for the entire family – provided by the Hamburg radio big band with compositions by Rainer Tempel and narrated (in German only) by actor Jörg Kleemann. Volker Kriegel’s strip cartoon will back the orchestra in an environmental and supportive role. Hear Ingolf Burkhardt as ‘Irving in Berlin’!