Remembering Heinz Gietz

Heinz Gietz was born on March 31, 1924 in Frankfurt, Main, Germany. At the age of 11, he took his first violin lessons. The music was in his blood and so two years later he began taking piano lessons. At 14 he made ​​his first steps as a composer and arranger.

 
From 1941 he attended the Conservatory in Frankfurt where he gained first experiences with jazz by Carlo Bohländer and Emil Mangelsdorff. In 1943 he was summoned to the labor service, and is drafted into the Wehrmacht. Heinz Gietz founded his own quartet in 1945 and worked as a jazz musician in the combo of The Hotclub Frankfurt. His first composition he wrote in 1946 for the "Little Theatre" and was received in the same year in the STAGMA (later GEMA). After the currency reform of 1948, he worked mainly as a composer and arranger for the Hessian Radio and other broadcasters.
 
In 1949 appears the first record with the Heinz Gietz composition "Scharfe Kurven". His first "hit" arrangement was in 1951 with “Das machen nur die Beine von Dolores”. A year later, his composition "Blumen für die Dame" is sung by Gitta Lind and became his first hit. With a new discovery called Caterina Valente in 1953 his first test shots Südwestfunk in Baden-Baden are made. In the same year a long and highly successful collaboration with the lyricist and producer Kurt Feltz starts. Heinz Gietz composed and arranged from 1954, the hits “O Mama, o Mama, o Mamajo” and “Baio Bongo” for Caterina Valente.
 
During the next 10 years Gietz continued to turn out hits for such artists as Valente, Bill Ramsey and Chris Howland. In 1963 Gietz becomes the musical director of "The Peter Weck Show" for ARD television. He also penned the love theme, for the film "Der Musterknabe", sung by Conny Froboess and Peter Alexander.
 
In 1965, he starts his own record label "Cornet- Records ". He is also musical director of the downstream television series "Sing ein Lied mit Onkel Bill" and writes the music for three Euro- western films "Massacre at Marble City" (1964), "Count Bobby, the Terror of the West" (1965)  and "The Man Called Gringo" (165). The Cornet label will be decommissioned in 1977 and Gietz began working again as a freelance producer for the EMI Electrola.
 
In 1980 Gietz composed, arranged and produced "Catherine and Potemkin". Gietz worked during the following years for various television shows, such as "Glücksspirale" and is also the musical director of the series "Wie wär’s heut mit Revue?" with Harald Juhnke and Ingrid Steeger.
 
Gietz died on December 24, 1989 in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was only 65 years-old.
 
Today we remember Heinz Gietz on what would have been his 90^th birthday.