The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
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HORST JANKOWSKI
“A WALK IN THE BLACK FOREST”
(HORST JANKOWSKI)
Mercury 72425
No. 12 July 10, 1965
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Horst Jankowski was born on January 30, 1936, in Berlin. During World War II, his father was killed and
he and his family were driven out of the city. He later returned and attended the Berlin Conservatory of
Music, where he studied the contrabass, tenor saxophone, trumpet, and piano. At 16, he met the
popular European singer/dancer CATERINA VALENTE, who engaged him for a two year tour of Africa,
France, and Spain. On his return, he frequently worked with Ms. Valente through 1964 and did some
arranging and composing for the German orchestra of Erwin Leha.
With his own jazz combo, Horst started performing on the Berlin nightclub circuit, and from 1957 on, a
number of various German polls voted Horst the top jazz pianist in Germany. Beginning in 1960, he
worked as a free-lance orchestra director/arranger for such renown acts as Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald,
Benny Goodman, Gerry Mulligan, and Oscar Peterson. He also began experimenting with various
combinations of conventional instruments and the human voice, much as RAY CONNIFF was doing in
the States.
With the Beaties, the Stones, the Dave Clark Five, the Byrds, the Yardbirds, and Dylan all in their prime–
and all over the charts, airwaves, and teen mags–it seems quite incredible that this German jazzman
could muscle his way onto the pop charts with a melodic piano-voice-orchestra thing originally called
“Eine Schwarzwaldfahrt.” Horst pulled it off, however, and the LP featuring Horst’s hit aria even made
the top pop albums chart in the U. S.
Another easy-listening lulu, “Simpel Gimpel” (#91, 1965), appeared on the Hot 100 for a week; several
more albums, and many more singles, flowed forth. The saccharine jazz-pop of Horst Jankowski is
occasionally heard even to this day on “Beautiful Music” radio stations across the globe.