It's a shame, in a way, that Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Jimmy Dorsey didn't live long enough to witness Bert Kaempfert in his heyday -- they either would have admired what he'd done, or been terribly jealous, and likely no more so than on hearing this album. Living It Up! is one of the spriteliest albums to come from Bert Kaempfert and his orchestra, a big band-flavored collection of generally upbeat instrumentals that lend themselves to repeated listening, if only for the obvious love that went into it all, especially the cover of "In the Mood." Only the final cut, "Tricky Trombone," sort of breaks the spell, being too cute for words and not interesting enough to sustain its length, but the rest is a veritable celebration of what life was like (or seemed like) for a lot of middle-class listeners in the years before the 1960s turned sour.