Hans Korseck

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Hans Korseck (* 1911 , † 11. July 1942 in Orel ) was a German guitarist of Swing . He is characterized by his contemporaries as the “outstanding jazz guitarist of the thirties” and is considered the first significant German plectrum guitarist .

Live and act

Korseck came from a strictly religious Prussian family; he studied medicine. Originally he came from the concert guitar ; In the early 1930s he played in a little-known jazz band called White Ravens , before soon becoming a member of Otto Stenzel's Scala Orchestra. From 1936 he worked in Berlin in the orchestras Peter Kreuder ("I'm Not Giving Up My Heart", with Greta Keller ), Kurt Hohenberger (" Limehouse Blues ") and Die Goldene Sieben ("Heimweh"). He also took part in recordings of various studio bands, including a. by Raymond Baird , Peter Igelhoff , Albert Vossen , Erwin Steinbacher , Franz Thon , Michael Jary and Ernst Weiland . As part of a student exchange with the United States, in which Korseck took part, he and his friend Albert Vossen visited New York and had the opportunity to meet his idols Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and to participate in rehearsals and jam sessions . With Peter Igelhoff (piano) he recorded the duo record Piano Medley in 1937 (Electrola 3966), a potpourri of American and English hits such as “In the Chapel in the Moonlight”, “Did I Remember”, “When the Poppies Bloom Again” "," Organ Grinder's Swing ", and" Pennies from Heaven ". The last recordings were made with Peter Igelhoff (“We make music”). In the field of jazz he was involved in 113 recording sessions from 1936 to 1942. According to contemporary witnesses interviewed by historian Michael H. Kater and also by Thomas Buhé , Korseck improvised in the linear fashion of Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt . However, this particular style of playing cannot be heard in the recordings that have been preserved; a chordal style of playing is quite muffled there.

Korseck taught secretly - he did not have permission from the Reichsmusikkammer - and wrote the book Schule für Plektrum -Guitar about the way of playing the plectrum , which was published by Zimmermann in March 1941 . It was the first teaching method for this instrument on the market. One of his most famous students was the jazz guitarist Coco Schumann ; he also influenced the guitarist and banjo player Klaus Buhé .

The last year of Koseck's life was marked by band engagements, the completion of medical studies, health problems of his young wife Hilde, who suffered a miscarriage , and being drafted into the Wehrmacht, where he worked in a medical unit on the Russian front . The Reich Chamber of Culture tried to have him moved back because he was supposed to become a member of the German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra. One day before his departure for Berlin, Korseck died on his last mission from a shot in the head near Orel ; he was 31 years old.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Michael H. Kater : Daring game. Jazz under National Socialism . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-462-02409-4 , pp. 125f.
  2. ↑ 70 years of plectrum guitar
  3. ↑ Michael H. Kater: Daring game. Cologne 1995, p. 184
  4. ↑ Michael H. Kater: Daring game. Cologne 1995, p. 218
  5. ↑ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Volume 119. B. Schott's Sons, 1958, p. 249
  6. ↑ a b Tom Lord : Jazz Discography (online)
  7. ↑ Carlo Bohländer and Robert Vogel also took part in this exchange group . See Jonathan Huener, Francis R. Nicosia: The Arts in Nazi Germany: Continuity, Conformity, Change . 2007, p. 39
  8. ↑ Interview with Thomas Buhé
  9. ↑ Hans Korsek at worldcat
  10. ↑ Coco Schumann; The ghetto swinger: a jazz legend tells. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997, p. 42
  11. ^ Memories of Klaus Buhé
  12. ↑ 70 years of plectrum guitar
  13. ↑ Michael H. Kater: Daring game. Cologne 1995, p. 242
  14. ↑ Michael H. Kater: Daring game. Cologne 1995, p. 219
  15. ↑ Thomas Klatt: Jazz in the 3rd Reich - Jazz in the bunker - Jazz in the concentration camp
personal data
SURNAME Korseck, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musician
DATE OF BIRTH 1911
DATE OF DEATH July 11, 1942
Place of death at Oryol