Efim chess master

Chaim "Efim" chess master (born July 22, 1894 in Kiev ; † October 6, 1944 in Buenos Aires ), actually Efim Chaissowsky, was a violinist and dance band leader. He also used the pseudonyms Sascha Elmo and Joan Florescu on records .

Life

Stolperstein , Hauptstrasse 5, in Berlin-Schöneberg

Efim Schachmeister was born on July 22nd, 1894 (according to Stengel and Gerigk) to Jewish-Romanian parents in Kiev and completed his musical apprenticeship from 1910 to 1913 at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. Around 1915 he played with the Gypsy band Popescu in Berlin . From 1923 he was conductor, in 1924 he went on a tour of Germany, which ended in April 1925 with an engagement at the Hotel Excelsior in Berlin.

This was followed by engagements in the Berlin noble dance floors Barberina , Palais de Danse and Pavillon Mascotte . Since that time he can also be found in the catalogs of the Grammophon , where he was soon awarded the honorary title “King of all dance violinists” (cf. advertisements in the Phon. Zschr.). Even the discriminatory lexicon of Jews in the music of Theo Stengel and Herbert Gerigk attested in 1942 that he was a “leading jazz conductor of the system time ” (p. 258). In 1930 he applied for German citizenship, but it is unknown whether the application was granted.

In fact, after a period of ragtime-like salon dance music, Schachmeister rose to the "jazz train" from around the mid-1920s; He had (according to Horst Lange) at times such accomplished musicians as the trumpeter Louis de Vries , the trombonist Henri van den Bossche , the banjo player Michael "Mike" Danzi and the pianist Adam Gelbtrunk in his band. He himself played the violin in the Gypsy Prímás manner, which “sang” in high registers, but was also able to deliver blues- like obliga- tions to “black” titles.

Schachmeister played the St. Louis Blues from WC Handy (cf. Grammophon 21 227, Mat. No. 1035 bd, from 1927), in a mixture of Mississippi and Shtetl styles, which gives an idea of ​​what the interaction of Jewish musicians is like Eastern Europe and black American jazz could have borne fruit for it. He made records for Polydor and Pallas.

The Jew and jazz musician Schachmeister, who hated the new rulers in both ways, emigrated from Nazi Germany. First he went to Belgium, then to Luxembourg. In 1936 he emigrated to Latin America like his well-known compatriots and colleagues such as Ilja Livschakoff , Leon Golzmann (alias Dajos Béla ) and Samuel Baskind (alias Sam Baskini ). He died in Argentina in 1944 at the age of only 50 .

On March 19, 2014 , a stumbling block was laid in front of his former residence, Berlin-Schöneberg , Hauptstrasse 5 .

Selected records

• Stampede. Charleston - gramophone 19597 (mx 193 bm) - Berlin, October 1926
• St. Louis Blues. Blues-Foxtrot - gramophone 21304 (mx 1035 ½at) - Berlin, January 1928

literature

• Klaus Krüger: Fox on 78 . Journal, Munich / Dietramszell, 2003.
• Horst H. Lange : Jazz in Germany . Berlin (Colloquium), 1966, etc.
• Rainer E. Lotz : German Ragtime and Prehistory of Jazz - Volume 1: The Sound Documents . London (Storyville), 1985.
• Rainer E. Lotz: Discography of German Dance Music - Volume 8 . Bonn (Lotz), 2003.
• Rainer E. Lotz: German hot discography. Cake Walk, Ragtime, Hot Dance & Jazz - a manual . Bonn (Lotz), 2006 ISBN 3-9810248-1-8 .
• Horst HJ Bergmeier, Rainer E. Lotz: Jazz in Germany. From cakewalk to jazz. - Book accompanying the CD box Bear Family Records BCD 16909 CP, 2007, 26261-X).
• Jürgen Wölfer : Jazz in Germany. The encyclopedia. All musicians and record companies from 1920 until today. Hannibal, Höfen 2008, ISBN 978-3-85445-274-4 .

Web links

Commons : Efim Schachmeister  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Dossier on Efim chess master

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Yearbook Stern'sches Konservatorium 1910, Germanized to Chess Masters . Source: Efim Schachmeister on grammophon-platten.de
2. ↑ http://grammophon-platten.de/page.php?459