Jazz history written Creator of the "Tatort" theme tune Klaus Doldinger dies
The jazz musician and creator of the "Tatort" theme tune Klaus Doldinger is dead. He died on Thursday evening at the age of 89, surrounded by his family, as they announced on Saturday.
18.10.2025, 16:05
dpa
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- Klaus Doldinger, one of the most important German jazz musicians and composer of the famous "Tatort" melody, has died in Munich at the age of 89.
- With his band Passport, he shaped the international jazz scene for decades and worked with artists such as Udo Lindenberg.
- In addition to numerous jazz works, he composed successful film scores, including for "Das Boot" and "Die unendliche Geschichte".
Klaus Doldinger was one of the country's most important jazz musicians. However, he wrote one of his most famous compositions for television: the "Tatort" melody. Now the artist has died.
With his band "Passport", Doldinger made international jazz history, performing on stage into old age. He played more than 5000 gigs in over 50 years.
The Passport album "The First Fifty Years of Passport" was released to mark the band's 50th anniversary in 2021 and traced the musical development of the group. Among Doldinger's many bandmates was Udo Lindenberg, who was the first drummer in Passport in 1971 and praised his former boss as a "jazz master".
Born in Berlin, Doldinger's career began much earlier: in the early 1950s, while he was still studying piano and clarinet in Düsseldorf, he was a member of the Dixie band "The Feetwarmers" and gained his first experience. A few years later, he founded his first band, "The Oskar's Trio".
In 1960, Doldinger toured the USA for the first time and was awarded honorary citizenship in the jazz metropolis of New Orleans. The career of the Berlin-born musician had taken off internationally. In 1969, he started his new band "Motherhood", followed by "Passport" in 1971. The sources of Doldinger's music included jazz, rock, blues and soul as well as experimental electro sounds and Latin American rhythms.
"Das Boot" and "The Neverending Story"
At the same time, he composed for film and television productions. He contributed the music to popular successes such as "Das Boot", "Die unendliche Geschichte", "Salz auf meiner Haut" and "Liebling Kreuzberg". The "Tatort" melody became an evergreen.
On the occasion of Doldinger's 85th birthday in 2021, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also congratulated him and paid tribute to the musician as a creative spirit "who constantly gives improvised music new, independent forms of expression, a composer and arranger who has worked with countless leading international jazz musicians, and a teacher and artist whose work has influenced improvised music for decades".