Hans Berry

Hans Berry (born September 20, 1906 in Berlin ; † October 7, 1984 ibid) was a German jazz musician ( trumpet , violin , piano ) and composer .

Life

Berry grew up in a musical family and received piano lessons from his parents and from his older sister Ilse in early childhood, as well as violin lessons from the age of twelve. He studied a. a. at the Berlin Musikhochschule (composition with Arnold Schönberg ) and with the solo trumpeter of the Berlin Philharmonic , Paul Spörri. In 1926 he made his first acquaintance with jazz , and from that time on he continuously studied the latest records (to play along with and replay), namely by Louis Armstrong , Duke Ellington , Red Nichols and His Five Pennies, Joe Venuti , Frankie Trumbauer , Fletcher Henderson , Miff Mole , Jimmy Dorsey , Bix Beiderbecke and many others.

First he founded his own "Berry-Band" with Hans Rettig , then he had numerous engagements, including from 1929 to 1931 with the "Fabian's Jazz Syncopators", briefly with the famous " Weintraubs Syncopators ". Then Hans Berry played z. B. with Billy Bartholomew and Kurt Widmann . In 1934, Der Artist magazine recognized him as an "unheard of hot trumpeter". But with a letter from the Reich Chamber of Music on August 19, 1935, Berry lost "the right to continue practicing his profession with immediate effect" because of the Nazi race laws . For him, this not only meant the immediate end of his engagement at Widmann, but also a professional ban in Germany. He became active in Switzerland , later also in the Netherlands and Belgium and played with Coleman Hawkins , Teddy Stauffer , the Lanigiros , Carlo Minari , Willie Lewis , Benny Carter , Bill Coleman , Ray Ventura , Gus Clark , Davie Bee , Fud Candrix , Jean Omer , Rex Stewart and in the Belgian Quintette du Hot-Club .

After the German occupying forces in Belgium discovered that he was German in 1943, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. Before that, he jammed in Frankfurt with Carlo Bohländer , Emil Mangelsdorff and Horst Lippmann . Until mid-October 1945 Berry was a Romanian prisoner of war . After his release he played again with Kurt Widmann from November 1945. From 1948 Hans Berry belonged to the RIAS dance orchestra for 25 years : until 1954 as a trumpeter, then as a violinist.

He wrote numerous compositions of his own between 1924 and around 1980 and recorded records with the Amiga Star Band (with Helmut Zacharias , Erwin Lehn and Coco Schumann , among others ), the Lanigiros , Rex Stewart , Werner Müller , Kurt Widmann and Gus Clark.

Hans Berry was considered to be the "only trumpeter in Germany who really knows what jazz is and is able to express it in his playing" (Roman Lewandowski 1949) and as "the top German trumpeter from 1930 to today" ( Horst H. Lange 1960).

literature

• Frank-Manuel Peter : Hans Berry for the 100th In: Fox on 78th A magazine - all about good old dance music . No. 24, Summer 2007, pp. 4–10.
• Roman Lewandowski: From concert violinist to jazz trumpeter (Hans Berry). In: Four quarters. Magazine for Music and Dance , 3rd vol. H. 2, Berlin, January 2nd, 1949, p. 5.
• Carlo Bohlander, Karl Heinz Holler: Reclams Jazzführer , Stuttgart 1970, p. 75.
• Michael H. Kater: A daring game. Jazz under National Socialism . Cologne 1995.
• Horst H. Lange: The history of jazz in Germany. The developments from 1910 to 1960 with discography. Lübbecke 1960.
• Horst H. Lange: Jazz in Germany. The German Jazz Chronicle 1900-1960. Berlin 1966.
• Hans Blüthner: Jazz in Berlin. In: Orkester Journalen , December 1947, p. 33 (quoted from Kater).

Web links

• Hans Berry, a "top German trumpeter after 1930 to 1954"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kater, Daring Game, p. 129
2. ↑ His grandfather Siegfried Berry was (which he did not know until then) originally of Jewish faith.
3. ↑ As a supposed Swiss, he dared to appear again in Germany in 1936
4. ↑ Kater, Daring Game, p. 279