 From 1952 to 1958 Sauter was co-leader of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra.Between 1957 and 1959 he was Kurt Edelhagen's successor as leader of the SWF orchestra in Baden-Baden, Germany.In 1961, he worked with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz on "Focus", a collaboration for which Sauter at Getz's commission wrote a suite of string compositions without primary melodies.