Heinz Kretzschmar

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Heinz Kretzschmar (born March 30, 1926 in Gohrisch ; † June 10, 2015 in Radebeul ) was a German jazz musician ( clarinet , alto , tenor and baritone saxophone ) and arranger . In 1951 he and his band were banned from working in the GDR .

Live and act

Kretzschmar, whose father played in the Gohrisch village band, received clarinet lessons at the Radebeul music school from the age of fourteen. After his labor service , he was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1944, but did his military service in a military band . Then he studied at the Musikhochschule Dresden with a focus on clarinet and saxophone.

In 1947 Kretzschmar founded his big band in Dresden , which had a particular tendency towards jazz and which soon had cult status. With this band, to which Günter Hörig belonged as pianist between 1948 and 1950 , he also recorded for the Amiga label . Then he was blamed by the police for a (possibly provoked) mass brawl during a concert at the end of 1950 and in 1951 he was no longer allowed to perform in the GDR with his soloists because the band's music was "anti-cultural", "had a negative influence on the youth" and was Endanger “public order and security”. He then moved to Düsseldorf with most of the members of the tentet .

Kretzschmar tours across West Germany, Austria and Switzerland; For two years the band played in a US jazz club in Tripoli . After the band broke up in 1957, he received engagements with Max Greger and from 1958 with Kurt Edelhagen , where he took the place of Franz von Klenck , who had died in an accident . With the Kurt Edelhagen Orchestra he has accompanied soloists such as Stan Getz , Oscar Peterson , Toots Thielemans and Benny Bailey . He also played in the Kenny Clarke / Francy Boland Big Band ; After the end of the Edelhagen era, he first belonged to Paul Kuhn's big band and then worked in the WDR Big Band Cologne . In addition, Kretzschmar also made a name for himself as an arranger of musicals (" Kiss Me Kate ", " My Fair Lady ") and radio and television productions (WDR harbor concerts, WDR Hollymünd, Grand Prix Colonia). Since 1995 he has directed his Swingtett, with which he also recorded the CD Let's Swing Again (1999).

Discographic notes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary in the Sächsische Zeitung from June 27, 2015.
  2. ↑ Karlheinz Drechsel The most exciting thing in the world. In: R. Bratfisch Free tones: The jazz scene in the GDR. Berlin p. 61ff.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Dohl's website ( memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ cit. n. Sebastian Münch Forty years of jazz in the GDR: persecuted, tolerated, promoted , GRIN-Verlag 2006 p. 7f. Cf. also Karlheinz Drechsel (in Bratfisch, p. 62), according to which even rape in Dresden was attributed to the influence of his music.
  5. ↑ Horst H. Lange Jazz in Germany: the German jazz chronicle until 1960. Hildesheim 1996, p. 157
personal data
SURNAME Kretzschmar, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German jazz musician (clarinet, alto, tenor and baritone saxophone) and arranger
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Gohrisch
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 2015
Place of death Radebeul