Caterina Valente

14. Januar 1931 - 9. September 2024

Dear Bear Family friends,
We have just received the sad news that Caterina Valente passed away on 09.09.2024 at the age of 93. Caterina Valente was one of the most successful and important European artists in the world of chanson, pop and jazz.

Valente first appeared in the circus ring with her siblings as a five-year-old girl. She made her first stage appearance in 1936 at the Friedrichsbau Stuttgart. After the turmoil of the war, imprisonment in Breslau and deportation to the Soviet Union, the Valente family returned to Paris, where Caterina initially performed as a sixteen-year-old singer in a nightclub.
After attempts in France with the then still unknown Gilbert Becaud and a tour of Scandinavia, she made her first vocal recordings with a quartet in Copenhagen in 1948. The first official vocal recordings were made for Radio Zurich in 1952 after Walo Linder, its head of entertainment, had heard her sing in the Grock circus. These recordings were sent to all German radio stations. This led to several studio productions at various radio stations, including Südwestfunk in Baden-Baden. It was there that Kurt Edelhagen, then head of the dance orchestra, heard her and promoted her from then on. In 1952, she married the juggler Erik van Aro and separated from the stage program of her mother Maria Valente, the most famous clown of her time.
Her first recordings with Kurt Edelhagen followed in 1953. She went on tour with him to the Salon du Jazz in Paris. Their joint appearance at the second German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt am Main in 1955 was a great success. Her first record was 'Istanbul' on the Brunswick label. She soon became known to a wide audience through recordings with the Werner Müller Orchestra such as Malagueña (1954),The Breeze And I (Polydor, 1955) by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona (14 weeks in the US charts) and Dreh dich nicht um nach fremden Schatten . She also continued to work in jazz. In 1956, she performed with Chet Baker and recorded the singles I'll Remember April and Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye with him. Her first music albums were released at the same time, including The Hi-Fi Nightingale (1956) and Plenty Valente (1957).
In Germany, the title Ganz Paris träumt von der Liebe (Polydor, 1954) sold over 900,000 copies within four years, an exceptionally high turnover for the German record industry at the time. Her most successful single The Breeze and I (more than 1,000,000 sales until 1978) was sold at the same time. Valente switched to Teldec in 1959.

Other well-known songs were Fiesta Cubana (1955), Komm ein bißchen mit nach Italien (1956), Wo meine Sonne scheint (1957),Spiel noch einmal für mich, Habanero(1958) and Tschau, Tschau, Bambina (1959). In 1959, she was nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Vocalist for the recording La strada del' amore , which, contrary to its title, was in English. In 1965, she was the first non-American to receive the Television Critics' Fame Award for Best Female Vocalist on US Television, presented by Sammy Davis, Jr. In 1964, the album The Caterina Valente Singers was released, on which a young Jimmy Page, known from the rock band Led Zeppelin, had one of his first jobs as a studio musician. At this time, Valente was pursuing several other projects alongside her solo career, almost all of which bore the German longing of the 1950s for foreign worlds in their names: Club Indonesia(number 1 in 1956 with the songSteig in das Traumboot der Liebe), ClubHonolulu (number 1 in 1960 with Itsy-Bitsy-Teenie-Weenie Honolulu Strandbikini), Club Italia, Club Argentina and several others. In the winter of 1978/79, Valente had another hit with the pop song Manuel , with which she appeared twice in the ZDF hit parade. Another hit was Männer brauchen Liebe in 1984, which reached number 2. In 1987, the album Ich bin ...was released with the single hit Ich bin noch da . The jazz CD A briglia sciolta recorded in Italy in 1989 (later re-released under the titles Fantastica and Platinum Deluxe ) is still Valente's best-selling CD worldwide.
In 1990, Valente performed as a jazz singer in concerts with the WDR Big Band of the Cologne Philharmonic. A recording entitled Kurt Weill - American Songs was released on CD a few years later. She mastered the scat technique typical of vocal jazz, in which her voice imitates the phrasing and sound of various instruments. Valente's last studio album, Girltalk, was released in 2000 in collaboration with harpist Catherine Michel.
While Valente mainly recorded and released pop songs in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe, she can generally be regarded as an interpreter of world music with a focus on South America. She brought the first bossa nova songs to Europe as early as 1959 and from then on sang songs in this rhythm in all her programs.Valente is considered a citizen of the world who recorded songs in nine languages. She spoke six languages fluently (French, Italian, Swedish, German, English and Spanish).
After her first musical successes, Valente made her first feature film in 1954 with Mannequins for Rio . In the same year, she made an appearance in the hit film Große Star Parade where she sang a song. A further eleven films followed. In 1957, Valente was given her own television show on German television (Bonsoir, Kathrin!), of which ten episodes were produced until 1964. Further Caterina Valente shows were produced in Italy, Austria and Switzerland: Nata per la Musica, Bentornata Caterina, Caterina (8 episodes), Music Circus (6 episodes). In the 1970s and 1980s, many so-called personality shows were also made with her on German television: Ein Leben voll Musik, Musik ist mein Leben, Unter Freunden.
There were also many appearances in shows by Hans Rosenthal and Peter Frankenfeld. She appeared on the third channels of television.
Ein Lächeln am Fuße der Leiter, Auf der Straße der Erinnerung and Rendezvous bei Caterina.
Valente had many appearances all over the world, including 15 tours in the USA, was at the Olympian Paris seven times, performed at the London Palladium and several times at the Talk of the Town ; further tours took her to South America, Japan, Australia and South Africa; even in the days of the Iron Curtain she had appearances in the USSR.

A highlight was the 1986 ARD television program Bravo, Catrin! with many friends to celebrate her 50th stage anniversary with almost 17 million viewers. In the USA, she was a star guest in more than 100 television programs, including the Dean Martin Show, the Perry Como Show, the Danny Kaye ShowHollywood-Palace, the Bing Crosby Show and musical star of the television series The Entertainers with Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart.

With her death, one of the truly great artists leaves our earth and leaves behind a truly great musical legacy in which there is certainly still a lot to discover, because Caterina Valente was much more than “just” a pop singer.

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