Coco Schumann

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Coco Schumann, 2012

Heinz Jakob "Coco" Schumann (born May 14, 1924 in Berlin ; † January 28, 2018 there ) was a German jazz musician and guitarist .

life and work

Born and raised in Berlin, Schumann came into contact with the newly emerging music genres jazz and swing in the 1930s . Schumann, who learned to play guitar and drums himself, played in various swing bands as a teenager. The nickname and stage name "Coco" came about at this time because a French friend could only pronounce the name Heinz as "-einz" and simplified his middle name Jakob to "Coco". Schumann, who initially resisted this nickname, was only persuaded to accept the new artist name by an older musician colleague.

With the introduction of the racial laws of the National Socialists in 1935, Schumann was classified as a " valid Jew ": his mother was Jewish , his father had converted from Christianity before the wedding and had an, albeit loose, connection with a reform Jewish community.

Schumann managed to play in Berlin bars and dance clubs even though he was still a minor. In addition, Jews were not allowed to become members of the Reich Chamber of Culture , i.e. they were not allowed to work as musicians and earn money. The National Socialists declared styles of music such as jazz and swing to be “un-German”. Exposed to threefold illegality, Schumann played with the help of a false tax identity until 1943 in the orchestras of Ernst van't Hoff and Tullio Mobiglia, among others . In March 1943 Schumann was arrested and deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto .

In Theresienstadt, Schumann made a connection with Fritz Weiss and other musicians who were expressly allowed to play jazz and swing. The National Socialists had planned Theresienstadt as a showcase ghetto to give the German public and other countries the impression that the Jewish inmates were being treated humanely. A variety of musical and cultural events in particular belonged to this illusion. In the documentary Theresienstadt - A Documentary from the Jewish Settlement Area by Kurt Gerron , produced by the National Socialists for propaganda purposes, Schumann can be seen in a short scene as the drummer of the jazz band Ghetto Swingers , directed by Martin Roman . As a reward, everyone involved in the film was promised that they would be released. But only three members of the 16-piece band survived. "After the shooting," says Coco Schumann, "we were sent straight to Auschwitz, most of them to the gas."

In September 1944, Schumann was initially taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. There he was one of the musicians who had to play La Paloma and other songs on the death ramp . In January 1945 he was deported to Kaufering , a subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp . From there, in April 1945, he and other prisoners were sent on a death march towards Innsbruck . On the way he was freed by American soldiers.

After the war, Schumann returned to Berlin, where he was able to quickly build on old successes with his jazz guitar, which was modified into an electric guitar . Together with Helmut Zacharias , Schumann played a large number of concerts, radio broadcasts and recordings. In 1950 Schumann emigrated to Australia with his wife . However, the family could not gain a foothold there and returned to Germany in 1954. Here Schumann continued his musical work and played again in various dance, radio and television bands. Schumann played jazz and dance music under his own name, and under the pseudonym "Sam Petraco" he composed Latin American-inspired light music. In the film Witwer with Five Daughters with Heinz Erhardt , Schumann can be seen as the guitarist of a rock 'n' roll band.

In the 1970s Schumann began to play in gala bands on cruise ships and at dance events. However, he retired in the 1980s slowly after which popular music had always farther from Schumann's preferred swing, and went for a few years again to Australia.

In the 1990s, Schumann returned to his roots in jazz and swing and founded the Coco Schumann Quartet. In 2012 it played on the occasion of the signing of a revised compensation agreement between Germany and the Jewish Claims Conference at a ceremony in the Jewish Museum Berlin . In 2013 Schumann appeared at the Protestant Church Congress in Hamburg.

Services

Coco Schumann and the electric guitar

In the first post-war years, Schumann was the first German musician to use an electric guitar. The main motivation for switching to an electrically amplified instrument he cited in interviews as being inspired by the US jazz guitarist Charlie Christian , one of the pioneers of the electric guitar in the late 1930s and a guitarist in ensembles of Benny Goodman, among others . With the help of the guitar maker Roger Rossmeisl , Schumann had his acoustic jazz guitar modified by making an electromagnetic pickup out of magnets and coils that were still in existence from the Wehrmacht . The bass player in his band built him a simple guitar amplifier with electronic tubes from Wehrmacht radios . Since he was able to play jazz and swing with the "American" sound of an electric guitar, he quickly became a sought-after studio and live guitarist, among others in the ensemble of Helmut Zacharias, for example in radio broadcasts by US military broadcaster AFN .

Holocaust survivor

As an immediate survivor, Schumann was a contemporary witness of the Holocaust: In 1997, the autobiography Der Ghetto-Swinger was published . A large part of the biography takes up Schumann's life during the Nazi era , especially the deportation to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. Schumann can also be seen on this topic in various television documentaries that report on Schumann's life and the Nazi concentration camps . Schumann himself hesitated for a long time to talk about his experiences during the Nazi era. On the one hand, they still represented disturbing experiences for him, on the other hand, he always wanted to be perceived as an artist and musician, but not as a former concentration camp prisoner. It was only after a conversation with a WDR reporter at a meeting of survivors of the Wulkow labor camp , including Schumann's wife, that his opinion changed. Since then, Schumann has been actively promoting education on the subject. Nevertheless, Schumann emphasized again and again: “I am a musician who was in a concentration camp. No concentration camp man who makes music ”.

Coco Schumann's autobiography was staged in 2012 as a musical in a production by Gil Mehmert : The Ghetto Swinger premiered at the Hamburger Kammerspiele , a. a. with Helen Schneider in a variety of roles. The musical was then played in the Harburg Theater.

Discography

With Helmut Zacharias

  • Nina Costas with the Helmut Zacharias Orchestra (Berlin 1947)
  • Helmut Zacharias with the Berlin Allstar Band (also: Amiga-Band, Berlin 1948)
  • Helmut Zacharias Quartet (Berlin 1948)
  • Helmut Zacharias and his Swingtett: Swing Is In (Electrola, 1976), u. a. with Peter Jacques , Hans Rettenbacher
  • Swinging Christmas (Helmut Zacharias and his Swingtett)

solo

literature

  • Coco Schumann: The ghetto swinger. A jazz legend told , recorded by Max Christian Graeff and Michaela Haas , 7th edition, dtv, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-24107-6 .
  • Heinz “Coco” Schumann: I owe my life to music in: Tina Hüttl, Alexander Meschnig (Ed.), You won't get us: Hidden as children - Jewish survivors tell stories , pp. 125-139, Piper, Munich 2013, ISBN 978 -3-492-05521-5 .
  • Caroline Gille, Niels Schröder: I got rhythm. The life of the jazz legend Coco Schumann . be.bra verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-89809-111-4 .
  • Michaela Haas : The music can't help it . In: Strong as a phoenix. How we develop our resilience and grow beyond ourselves in crises. OW Barth, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-426-29240-2 .
  • Sören Marotz: Well, I can build something like that for you ... Coco Schumann and the first electric guitar from Germany . Article and interview in: Stromgitarren - special issue of the magazine Guitar & Bass on the history of the electric guitar. MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004. ISSN  0934-7674 p. 86 ff.

Awards

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Guitarist Coco Schumann is dead
  2. ↑ "I didn't think that was nice until someone from my older colleagues said to me: 'Please be happy, Heinz doesn't remember anyone' [...]." - Coco Schumann on his stage name, quoted from Sören Marotz's interview with the guitarist in: Stromgitarren - special issue of the magazine Guitar & Bass on the history of the electric guitar. MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004. ISSN  0934-7674 p. 87
  3. ↑ Swing Kids With Jazz against the Nazis @ approx. 70%
  4. ↑ Michaela Haas, Strong Like a Phönix, p. 113
  5. ↑ Tagesschau from January 29, 2018, 12.00 p.m. online , accessed on January 29, 2018
  6. ↑ Strong as a Phoenix, p. 118.
  7. ↑ Detlef David Kauschke: New compensation agreement signed. Ceremony 60 years of the Luxembourg Agreement Jüdische Allgemeine online, November 15, 2012, accessed on November 16, 2012
  8. ↑ “I loved Charlie Christian's music. But I didn't even know what it was called before. ”- Coco Schumann when asked about the trigger for his desire to play electrically amplified guitar. Quoted from Sören Marotz's interview with the guitarist in: Stromgitarren - special issue of the guitar & bass magazine on the history of the electric guitar. MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004. ISSN  0934-7674 p. 87
  9. ↑ Charlie Christian played one of the first mass-produced electric guitar models, the Gibson ES-150 , in the late 1930s
  10. ↑ "[...] When I came back [to Berlin] there was fan mail in the Masurenallee [house address of the Berliner Rundfunk] in which this incredibly beautiful new sound was admired." - Coco Schumann on his first electric guitar , quoted from Sören Marotz's interview with the guitarist in: Stromgitarren - special issue of the guitar & bass magazine on the history of the electric guitar. MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004. ISSN  0934-7674 p. 87
  11. ↑ Ian Shulman: 'The moon is high over the roofs of Charlottenburg…' interview with Helen Schneider ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Jewish Journal, September 30, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jewishjournal.com
  12. ↑ The Ghetto Swinger. From the life of jazz musician Coco Schumann Hamburger Kammerspiele, accessed on November 9, 2015.
  13. ↑ In 1989 there was talk of the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (first award), in all later theater information about the Federal Cross of Merit First Class, time unclear. Carl Hermann: Never talk about it again Die Zeit, March 24, 1989, accessed on November 21, 2015; Hamburger Kammerspiele , accessed on November 22, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Schumann, Coco
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schumann, Heinz Jakob (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German jazz musician and guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 2018
Place of death Berlin