Werner Muller & RIAS Tanzorchester
Biography Werner Muller & RIAS Tanzorchester
Werner Müller
Berlin-based Werner Müller (born 1920) was, alongside Kurt Edelhagen, one of the most well-known jazz orchestra conductors in the 1950s. He played the violin as a child, enrolled at the military music school in Bückeburg in 1936, and was a member of a military music corps during the war. While in American captivity, he discovered swing music and was accepted as a trombonist into Kurt Widmann's orchestra in 1945. Müller achieved his breakthrough in 1949 when he was appointed conductor of the RIAS Dance Orchestra. There, he gathered outstanding musicians like Rolf Kühn around him.
In the 1950s, his sound dominated many recordings, including those for Polydor and Teldec. He accompanied Bully Buhlan, Renée Franke, Gerhard Wendland, Margot Hielscher, Rudi Schuricke, Friedel Hensch and the Cyprys, Lale Andersen, Caterina Valente, and many others. As a composer, he used the pseudonym Heinz Buchholz. In the 1980s, Werner Müller wrote several crime novels. He died in Cologne in 1998.
