Klaus Doldinger (born 12 May 1936) is a German saxophonist known for his work in jazz and as a film music composer. He was the recipient of 1997's Bavarian Film Awards.
Klaus Doldinger was born and grew up in Berlin until his family moved to Düsseldorf during the Second World War. His early passion for jazz music was kindled by the occupying forces stationed there. At the age of eleven, he began to study piano, clarinet, harmony and music theory at the Robert Schumann Conservatoire.
After additional recording engineering studies, he set up the recording studio 'Soundport Studios'. Doldinger gained professional performing experience, starting in 1953 in the German Dixieland band The Feetwarmers, and recording with them in 1955. That same year he won the first prize 'Coupe Sidney Bechet' at the Brussels Jazz Festival.
In 1962 he founded the Klaus Doldinger Quartet which achieved international successes in Europe and the USA. The city of New Orleans conferred upon him honorary citizenship during his American tour. He released several LPs with Latin American and African influences, inspired by Moroccan and South American tours.
He has worked with such top visiting and expatriate Americans as Don Ellis, Johnny Griffin, Benny Bailey, Idrees Sulieman, Donald Byrd, and Kenny Clarke, recording as a leader for Philips, World Pacific, and Liberty In 1964 he composed for the advertising industry, theater and cinema. By 1968 he formed his first band Negresco.
In 1971 Doldinger, together with Udo Lindenberg, founded the still existing group 'Passport' which was the first German band to get signed to the legendary label Atlantic Records. In its influence it was sometimes called the European version of Weather Report. The first true Passport album had strong ties to Amon Düül II containing contributions from Olaf Kübler, Lothar Meid and Jimmy Jackson, it remains an off-the-radar Krautrock essential.
His first major orchestral work 'Jazzconcertino' was premiered in 1968. Klaus Doldinger gained worldwide fame for his compositions for film and television. As early as 1967, when the first colour TV sets appeared on the market, he wrote the successful trailer for the 'ARD Farbcaption'. The first complete film music composed by Doldinger was for the film 'Negresco', a production by Klaus Lemke. Doldinger received numerous commissions for music productions in the advertising and film business and for the theatre.
In 1970 he composed the theme of the German-Austrian crime series 'Tatort' which is used until today. In the following years, Doldinger wrote the music for a number of 'Tatort' episodes. The music of the feature film 'Das Boot' in 1981 marked his final breakthrough as a composer. The same year he also composed the theme of the TV series 'Ein Fall für Zwei', followed by the soundtrack of the fantasy film 'Die unendliche Geschichte' and the theme of the lawyers' series 'Liebling Kreuzberg'. He was awarded the Frankfurt Music Prize in 2000.
Under the title of 'Symphonic Project' the works Die unendliche Geschichte, Symphonic Tatort, Das Boot and Jazzconcertino were re-released on CD in 2011. A true musician through and through and an extremely prolific one on top of that, Doldinger has released a total of 50 albums and composed more than 2,000 works. He has been on stage about 5,000 times in about 50 countries. He is a member of the Artistic Advisory Board of the Union of German Jazz Musicians and of the GEMA Supervisory Board.
(Edited from Schott Music Wikipedia & AllMusic)