* En anglais uniquement
The prolific and long-running
De-Phazz (also known as
DePhazz) is a contemporary lounge project led by
Peter "Pit" Baumgartner, a German-Austrian producer who has surrounded himself with a shifting cast of collaborators that includes vocalists
Barbara Lahr,
Karl Frierson, and
Pat Appleton. Beginning with
Detunized Gravity (1997),
Baumgartner and company have explored various forms of lounge music, much of it balancing samples with live instrumentation, with innumerable cross-sections of vintage jazz and soul, easy listening, and Latin music.
De-Phazz tracks like "No Jive" and "The Mambo Craze" have appeared on dozens of compilations with "lounge," "chill," and "café" in the title. Though much of the
De-Phazz catalog could be termed studio creations, it also contains collaborative, acoustic, and live projects such as
Big (recorded with
the Radio Bigband Frankfurt, 2009), Naive (2013), and Private (2016). No stranger to outside work,
Baumgartner remixed
Ella Fitzgerald's "Wait 'til You See Him" for the first
Verve Remixed compilation, as well as tracks by the likes of
Kool & the Gang,
a-ha, and
Blank & Jones. ~ Andy Kellman