Fritz Schulz-Reichel

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Berlin memorial plaque on the house, Gotha-Allee 19, in Berlin-Westend

Fritz Schulz-Reichel (actually: Fritz Schulze), known as "Der schrag Otto" and "Crazy Otto" (born July 4, 1912 in Meiningen , † February 14, 1990 in Berlin ) was a German jazz pianist and composer .

Life

Fritz Schulz-Reichel in the Panoptikum Mannheim .

Fritz Schulz-Reichel began as a concert pianist and in 1934 joined the dance orchestra of the Romanian conductor James Kok , which was continued by Erhard Bauschke after his emigration in 1935 . Schulz-Reichel then played in the band founded by Kurt Hohenberger in 1937 and with Herb Flemming . From 1939 he accompanied Rosita Serrano and in 1942 he played in Oslo with Herbert Velmer; At that time, at least abroad, he was already considered the best German swing pianist.

From 1946 he worked in the then Soviet zone of occupation in the Radio Berlin Dance Orchestra , accompanying Walter Dobschinski , Johannes Rediske and Helmut Zacharias . In the same year he also composed his first successful hit song Wenn ich dich seh ', then I start dreaming, which was followed, among other things, in 1949 in the Café de la Paix in Paris, in 1951 on Saturday at four and in 1960 two lovers in Paris .

He became really popular from 1952 as "Schräger Otto". In doing so, he was essentially based on the style of the ragtime and honky-tonk pianist Winifred Atwell , who was very popular in Great Britain at the time ; In contrast to her, however, he played the well-known post-war German evergreens in a ragtime-like rhythm and not on a grand piano, but on a piano, on which the middle string was slightly out of tune (for the recording of some tracks he also pressed thumbtacks into the felt of the hammer), the result was a unique, unmistakable - just "weird" - sound that was somewhat reminiscent of a bar piano from the turn of the century.

In 1955 he was very successful in the USA under the stage name "Crazy Otto" with his album of the same name. The album reached number one in the charts, making Schulz-Reichel the first German to succeed before Bert Kaempfert . With Glad Rag Doll and Smiles, the versions of two hits from the 1920s, he also had two hits in the singles charts, which reached number 19 and 21 respectively. A medley of German melodies under the title The Crazy Otto in the style of Fritz Schulz-Reichel by the American ragtime pianist Johnny Maddox stayed at number 2 in the US charts for a full 14 weeks and was the first to sell over a million times Ragtime recording at all.

In the 1960s Schulz-Reichel was successful with a series of records, each with additional titles of the kind: "In der Bar ..." or "In einer Bar ...", presented danceable medleys of well-known songs as high-quality "bar music" . Together with the Bristol Bar Sextet , he convinces here at the highest instrumental level and with the ductus of skilfully casual triviality and at the same time perfect precision. The bar piano sound described above is only used in a few tracks (e.g. in the Charleston medley of the album In der Bar nextan , see discography). Rather, the pianist is busy playing a well-tuned and intact instrument of a perfectly mastered Leggiero game, which gains its unobtrusive accuracy from avoiding pianistic redundancy in favor of a focused set economy.

Schulz-Reichel, who performed as a soloist with several radio orchestras, also composed some film scores, appeared in numerous films and regularly in television entertainment programs in the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1965 he had his own show called One should be able to play the piano. Schulz-Reichel's turn to more commercially oriented light music may be regretted by Michael H. Kater, who described the former jazz musician as “the Magdeburg piano genius” or as the “leading [German jazz] pianist of the Nazi era” with “ almost ingenious talent ”, or simply being able to appreciate it as a popularization of skillful piano playing.

The pianist was already a star during the shellac record era and was just as successful in the transition to the vinyl LP in the mid-1950s ; all of his records were published by Polydor .

A wax figure was made of him in the 1990s. Since May 2013 this can be seen in the Panoptikum Mannheim .

Michael H. Kater explores the musician's Nazi past in his book Daring Game. Jazz in National Socialism and addresses his SS membership from the beginning of 1933 to the beginning of 1938 on the basis of self-statements by Schulz-Reichel.

Filmography

Discography (selection)

  • In the bar next door, 7-1962 Polydor 46 608 (mono), 237 108 (stereo)
  • In the bar opposite, 1-1963, Polydor 46 616 (mono), 237 116 (stereo)
  • In the bar at midnight, 11-1963
  • In the bar international, 11-1964
  • The Tipsy Hit Parade , 1964
  • In a bar in Paris , 1966, 249 067 (stereo)
  • In a bar in Berlin , 1966, 249 081 (stereo)
  • Vodka at Veruschka , 1968
  • Tokaier near Piroschka , 1969
  • Piano in Gold, 1969, Polydor 249 332 (stereo)
  • Music from the piano bar (1 CD, Polyphon 839 410-2), 1989
  • Music from the piano bar (3 CDs, Polydor jazzclub), 2010
  • Midnight Piano, 2007
  • In the Café de la Paix (Edition Berliner Musenkinder, duophon 01 34 3), 1997 (16 of his compositions, recorded by fellow musicians in memory of Fritz Schulz-Reichel on the occasion of his 85th birthday)

literature

  • Bernd Meyer-Rähnitz, Frank Oehme, Joachim Schütte: The "Eternal Friend" - Eterna and Amiga; The discography of the shellac records (1947–1961) , Albis International Bibliophilen-Verlag, Dresden-Ústí 2006, ISBN 80-86971-10-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Michael H. Kater: Daring game. Jazz under National Socialism . Munich 1998, p. 364 (Orig .: Cologne 1995, online: https://books.google.de/books?id=ALcuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT345&dq=Gewagtes+Spiel:+Jazz+im+Nationalsozialismus+Schulze+%C3%A4nderte+ his + name + inSchulz-Reichel & hl = en & sa = X & ved = 0ahUKEwjy_uuw48bmAhWlQkEAHQKsB2cQ6AEIKzAA # v = OnePage & q = Gewagtes% 20Spiel% 3A% 20Jazz% 20FINALLY% 20Nationalsozialismus% 20Schulze% 20% C3% A4nderte% 20seinen% 20Namen% 20inSchulz-Reichel & f = false , accessed at December 21, 2019).
  2. ↑ See ibid., P. 364.
  3. ↑ Ibid., P. 85.
  4. ↑ Ibid., P. 124.
  5. ↑ See ibid., P. 196 ( https://books.google.de/books?id=ALcuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT188&dq=Gare+Spiel:+Jazz+im+Nationalsozialismus+Schulze+SS+Anfang+1933&hl=de&sa=X&ved = 0ahUKEwiDy8TY4sbmAhUNM8AKHTn5AZYQ6AEIKTAA # v = onepage & q = Daring% 20Game% 3A% 20Jazz% 20im% 20Nationalsozialismus% 20Schulze% 20SS% 20Anfang% 201933 & f = false , accessed on December 21, 2019).
personal data
SURNAME Schulz-Reichel, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Meiningen
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1990
Place of death Berlin