Werner Müller (2 August 1920, Berlin – 28 December 1998, Cologne) was a German composer, Kapellmeister and conductor of Western classical music. In some of his works he collaborated with Caterina Valente and Horst Fischer, the trumpeter.
In his youth Werner studied music and performance on bassoon, piano and violin andwas a proper musical whizzkid, proficient enough on violin to play Mozart concertos at the age of ten.
In the 40s good and bad luck combined fortuitously when a German military school introduced him to the trombone and whilst later on his American army captors introduced him to swing. In 1946 he joined Kutte Widman as trombonist. In 1948 he was appointed leader of the RIAS-Tanzorchester and made numerous recordings.
RIAS (Radio im amerikanischen Sektor – Radio in the American Sector) was a radio station in the American Sector of Berlin (1946 to 1993). Before the age of thirty Muller was leading the hottest swing with strings dance band in Berlin and working with the likes of clarinetist Rolf Kuhn. Muller became a well known conductor and arranger, noted for his perfectionism. He backed many German pop-singers and recorded music of a wide variety resulting in many hits. He toured Japan in 1958. Below is one of his many single records released between the early 1950s and 1960s.
Muller recorded several collections of French, Italian, and other national tunes recorded for Decca which were released in Europe under the name of "Ricardo Santos," but in the U.S. under Müller's own name, as part of a series of "Musical Holiday" albums tied-in with the travel magazine, Holiday.
In 1967, Müller moved to Cologne to take over the Tanzorchester of radio station WDR, which had an even larger audience. Müller ensured his tenure with a versatile and perfectionist approach to his material. His best jazz records date from the period 1950 to 1957.
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Thereafter his recordings become more light orchestral in character, and he acquired an excellent string section. A great variety and number of such albums followed in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
On his album "Hawaiian Swing", for example, he plays with right-left separation and tosses in an enjoyable assortment of percussion effects to liven up the usual selection of Hawaiian standards. On "Percussion in the Sky", he uses wordless vocals, sound effects, whistling, and other touches to lend an other-worldly feeling to numbers like "The Theme from The High and the Mighty."
"Bodybuilder," from one of Müller's later albums, The Strip Goes On, was sampled as the basis for the song "Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out" by Bentley Rhythm Ace, a big club hit in the U.K. in 1997.
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Muller, who recorded some 40 albums in the 1950's, 60's and 70's, died