James Last
(born Hans Last
on 17 April 1929 in Bremen) is a German composer and big band leader.
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JAMES LAST TICKETS
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Biography
Last's father was an official at the public works department of the city of Bremen and he grew up in the suburb of Sebaldsbrück. He learned to play the
piano from the age of 12, then switched to
double bass as a
teenager. His home city was heavily bombed in
World War II and he ran messages to air defence command posts during raids. At 14 he was entered in the
Bückeburg Military Music School of the German
Wehrmacht.
[1]
After the fall of the
Nazis, he joined
Hans-Gunther Österreich's Radio Bremen Dance Orchestra in 1946. In 1948, he became the leader of the
Last-Becker Ensemble, which performed for seven years. During that time, he was voted as the best bassist in the country by a German
jazz poll for three consecutive years, from 1950–1952. After the Last-Becker Ensemble disbanded, he became the in-house arranger for
Polydor Records, as well as for a number of European radio stations. For the next decade, he helped arrange hits for artists like
Helmut Zacharias,
Freddy Quinn,
Lolita,
Alfred Hause and
Caterina Valente.
Work
James Last first released albums in the U.S. under the titles
The American Patrol
on Warner Brothers around 1964. He also released a series of 9 albums in a series called
Classics Up To Date
vols. 1–9 which served up arrangements of classical melodies with strings, rhythm and wordless chorus from the mid sixties through the early seventies. Last released an album,
Non-Stop Dancing,
in 1965, a recording of brief renditions of popular songs, all tied together by an insistent dance beat and crowd noises. It was a hit and helped make him a major European star. Over the next four decades, Last released over 190 records, including several more volumes of
Non-Stop Dancing
. On these records, he varies his formula by adding different songs from different countries and genres, as well as guest performers like
Richard Clayderman and
Astrud Gilberto. He also had his own successful television series in the 1970s with guests
ABBA and
Lynsey de Paul.
Though his concerts and albums are consistently successful—especially in
England, where he had 52 hit albums between 1967 and 1986, which made him second only to
Elvis Presley in charting records—he has only had two hit singles with "The Seduction", the theme from
American Gigolo
(1980) composed by Giorgio Moroder, and "Biscaya" from the album
Biscaya
. The song "The Lonely Shepherd", written by Last and performed by
Gheorghe Zamfir and the James Last Orchestra, was featured in the
soundtrack to
Quentin Tarantino's film
Kill Bill
Vol. 1 (2003).
[2]
He has won numerous popular and professional awards, including
Billboard
magazine's Star of the Year trophy in 1976, and has been honoured for lifetime achievement with the German
ECHO prize in 1994. His song "Music from Across the Way" (recorded by Andy Williams in 1972) is a melody with a classical feeling and was a worldwide hit.
Last has a large fan base in Europe and elsewhere. His trademark is
big band arrangements of
pop music hits; his series of
party albums
is equally well known. Over the course of his career, he has sold well over 100 million albums.
Personal life
Last divides his time between
Florida and
Germany. He gives much credit to his wife and son, who help with his music.
Discography
See also
- James Last Orchestra
- List of best-selling music artists
References
- My Autobiography
- {{Imdb name|0489904|James Last}}