Adolf Steimel

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Adolf Steimel (born October 12, 1907 in Berlin ; † August 12, 1962 ) was a German musician ( piano , organ , also celesta , guitar , accordion ), arranger , composer and orchestra conductor . He was popular in swing and dance music during World War II and was primarily active as a film composer in the post-war period .

Live and act

Steimel worked for the orchestras of Billy Bartholomew and Michael Jary in the mid-1930s . In 1939 he founded his Organum dance orchestra as a studio orchestra , with which he recorded for Odeon until 1944 (initially the “Foxtrot series” and an operetta potpourri by Ludwig Schmidseder's Frauen im Metropol ). With his studio ensemble, film songs such as “It was always so beautiful for you” (from the musical comedy Anita and the Devil from 1941) or the foxtrot “Tell me you” from the film operetta with a million wedding were created . During the Nazi era , Steimel mainly recorded popular hits in swing arrangements; He accompanied vocalists such as Ilse Werner (“Little Jumping Jack”, “We Make Music”), Sven Olof Sandberg (“Always stay with me”), Herbert Ernst Groh (“I'm in love with two eyes”), Rudi Dreyer (“ A girl has never laughed at me ”), Horst Winter (“ Two in one big city ”), Kary Barnet (“ Auf Wiederseh'n ”), Eva Busch (“ The men are already worth love ”, on Columbia Records ) , Rudi Schuricke ("Letters that never reached you"), Herta Berlo ("Hm hm you are so magical") and Gerda Schönfelder ("Quietly, music sounds"). On March 6, 1944, his orchestra recorded the last dance music recording for Odeon before the end of the war with “I'll never leave my Peter alone” and “I'll give you my hands in parting” (Odeon 31730, with Kary Barnet).

1940 played at Steimel u. a. Willy Berking , Teddy Kleindin , Franz Fijal-Lipinsky , Werner Neumann and Harry van Dyk . In the 1930s and 1940s he continued to work as a pianist and arranger in Berlin with the dance orchestras of Hans Georg Schütz and Kurt Widmann . Together with Georg Haentzschel and Horst Kudritzki, Steimel was one of the well-known arrangers who created sophisticated swing arrangements of often mediocre German melodies during the Nazi era, as the use of original American titles was forbidden. Adolf Steimel's orchestra was (similar to the formations of Hans Rehmstedt and Benny de Weille ) an excellent swing-oriented dance orchestra with excellent soloists.

With his orchestra Steimel made one of the first post-war recordings (“Come with me to the Chambre Separee”). After the end of the war he recorded for Amiga ("Über die Prärie") and Telefunken ("Long, long ago") in 1947 . In the field of jazz he was involved in 47 recording sessions between 1939 and 1947. He also arranged some titles for the German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra .

In the post-war period he worked primarily as a film composer. In addition to “We Make Music”, Steimel composed a number of songs such as “I have you, and you have me”, “My heart is premiering today” (for Ilse Werner), “Alo-Ahé” (for Willy Schneider ), “ Young man from a good home ”(for Fritz Schulz-Reichel ),“ When will you be with me again ”and“ The men are already worth love ”, a piece that was received for the film The Moving Man (1994).

Discographic notes

  • The golden funnel - historical recordings (EMI, recordings 1939/40)
  • Adolf Steimel and his Organum Dance Orchestra: Melodies in major and minor (Telefunken, recordings 1939–1944), with Rudi Schuricke, Rudi Dreyer, Heinz Müller, Kary Barnet, Ilse Werner

Filmography (selection)

Lexical entries

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed October 4, 2014)
  2. ↑ http://grammophon-platten.de/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?7942
  3. ^ Michael H. Kater : Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany . 2003, page 129
  4. ↑ Bernd Hartwig: Things were different back then: a report on the Hitler era (1933-1945) . Aachen 2002
  5. ↑ Mathias Brüll Jazz on AMIGA. The jazz records of the AMIGA label from 1947 to 1990. Pro Business, Berlin 2003
personal data
SURNAME Steimel, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German jazz musician, arranger, composer and orchestra leader
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1962
Place of death Berlin