Felix Lehmann

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Felix Lehmann (born December 17, 1882 , † December 28, 1975 in Berlin ) was a German orchestra conductor and jazz musician , best known under the stage name Fred Bird .

Life

From 1924 Lehmann was the house band master and recording manager of the record company Homophon Co. in Berlin's Alexandrinenstrasse. He made numerous recordings under other names. This enabled him to pretend that his record company did not have a broad range of interpreters: if there was a daily hit, he traded as a homocord dance orchestra , without naming his name, but mostly with refraing singing by Ludwig “Luigi” Bernhuber / Bernauer. On the other hand, if it was a question of performing salon and concert repertoir, the chapel became the Félix Lemeau salon orchestra with a French-sounding conductor's name. After the turn of the year 1926/27, when there was increasing demand for American dance hits, his band also appeared under the name Fred Bird The Salon Symphonie (sic) Jazz Band . Around 1929/30 it became the Fred Bird Rhythmicans on the new black homocord label . The “more jazz-oriented band” was occasionally heard on the radio between 1929 and 1932. A photo of Fred Bird was reprinted in the 1931 Artists' Almanac on the radio . After 1933 the band was finally baptized - due to the ban on aliases by the Reich Chamber of Culture - the Fred Bird Dance Orchestra until the Homophon company disappeared completely and became part of the Carl Lindström group .

The South African banjoist and jazz singer Al Bowlly worked intermittently with Fred Bird's band. According to Lange, however, Bird seems to have employed other top-class jazz musicians as soloists in his orchestra; In addition to Bowlly, Horst H. Lange mentions the trumpeter Howard O. MacFarlane, the violinist Arno Lewitsch and the guitarist and banjo player Mike Danzi .

The orchestra's sound changed noticeably after 1932 with the name: The Fred Bird dance orchestra does not seem to have had the same line-up as the Salon Symphonie Jazz Band , nor the same as the Rhythmicans .

Little is known about Fred Bird's career after 1934. However, in the late 1930s and into the first years of the war, a dance orchestra Fred Berd published on the Kristall label - with an “e” instead of the “i” - which neither in orchestral sound nor anything else resembled the old recordings of Fred Bird alias Felix Lehmann remembers. It was a single recording session in October 1937.

The Berlin business directory still lists him as a musician in the 1950s. He died largely forgotten in Berlin in 1975.

Discography (selection)

Fred Bird, The Salon Symphonic Jazz Band (recordings with Al Bowlly)
  • M-19381-2 Ain't She Sweet? Homo 4-2389 Berlin, September 12, 1927.
  • M-19382 In A Little Spanish Town Homo 4-2389
  • M-19444 I'm Alone In Athlone-2 Homo 4-2418 Berlin, September 23, 1927.
  • M-19445 Because I Love You-1 Homo 4-2418
  • M-19748-1 Rio Rita Homo 4-2496 Berlin, c. December, 1927
  • M-19749 Souvenirs Homo 4-2496

One of the famous recordings by Fred Bird's Salon Symphonic Jazzband is: Stampede / Black Bottom , Berlin 1927 on Homocord 4-2283.

literature

  • Björn Englund, Gabriel Goessel and Rainer E. Lotz German National Discography Volume 8; ISBN 978-3-9805808-8-5 [3-9805808-8-1]
  • Artist on the radio. A pocket album of the magazine 'Der deutsche Rundfunk'. Berlin, Rothgiesser & Diesing, 1931.
  • Horst H. Lange, Jazz in Deutschland - die deutsche Jazzchronik 1900-1960 , Berlin, Colloquium 1966, 2nd improved edition, Olms 1996, 296 pages, ISBN 3-487-08375-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Internet Archive: Community Audio
  2. ↑ Felix Lemeau, Fritz Lehmann
  3. ↑ See Michael H. Kater : Daring game. Jazz in National Socialism Cologne 1995, p. 36
  4. ↑ See there p. 234
  5. ↑ cf. Al Bowlly's discography under AL BOWLLY DISCOGRAPHY - 1926-29 ( Memento from October 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Horst H. Lange, Jazz in Deutschland, pp. 46–47, 54
  7. ↑ Lange wrote that Lehmann "should end his career as a sausage dealer in Berlin", according to which he survived the Nazi dictatorship (unlike a namesake from Darmstadt who was murdered in Auschwitz and with whom he was repeatedly confused), but is not appeared more as a musician.
  8. ↑ cf. Entry at http://www.lotz-verlag.de/series2.html to Vol.8
  9. ^ Entry as Fred Bird 1954
  10. ↑ "Dance floors and pleasure palaces. Berlin", Knut Wolffram, Edition Hentrich 1992
  11. ↑ Jazz in Germany, Vol. 1 , Rainer Lotz & Horst Bergmeier, Bear Family Records 2007
personal data
SURNAME Lehmann, Felix
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bird, Fred (stage name); Lemeau, Félix (stage name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German orchestra leader and jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1882
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1975
Place of death Berlin