Kurt Widmann (musician)

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Odeon31790-Little Boy from Porto Rico by Walter Jenson , Orchester- Kurt Widmann, Berlin 1948

Kurt "Kutte" Widmann (* March 2, 1906 , † November 27, 1954 ) was a German jazz musician and orchestra conductor.

Live and act

Widmann was originally a drummer, later also an accordionist and trombonist. He started in Berlin in 1933 with a quintet in the Berlin Hotel Imperator , the u. a. Hans Berry belonged to; Widmann quickly became a star with his swing repertoire . He made pieces like “This is my rhythm” or “Have you ever kissed in the dark?” Popular. Widmann and his band were repeatedly warned by the Nazis because of their supposedly Jewish or degenerate music .

Between 1938 and 1942 Widmann directed his own dance orchestra, which performed in the Vaterland house and played swing jazz on a regular basis. In 1938 the first recordings were made, in some cases under English-sounding pseudonyms such as Billy Blackmoore, John Weepster or John Webb. With the beginning of the war against England in 1939, the censorship forbade these naming conventions; nevertheless, the band was used to support the troops. Widmann was later drafted into the Wehrmacht , but released again in 1944 for health reasons. When he met a musician colleague on the street, he commented out loud with the sentence “The degenerate music has triumphed!” Until the end of 1944, he performed again with a band at night in the partly destroyed Haus Vaterland, which became a Wehrmacht home for soldiers traveling through had been repurposed. During the last days of the war, Widmann played in a night cinema between the films with his band “fantastic jazz, incredibly good. You have to imagine it, a cinema like that, everything was covered in smoke and the soldiers had their rifles and their backpacks with them and slept in there and then the jazz there, ”recalls the writer Walter Kempowski .

Soon after the end of the war, Widmann played with a new band for soldiers' clubs in the US Army , using old arrangements from the war time, but also with the help of the then well-known Berlin arranger Walter Jenson . His repertoire also included the best numbers by Lionel Hampton and Boogie-Woogies . As early as 1946 he, at that time the most popular big band leader in Germany, started making records again. He died of a stroke in 1954 .

Widmann is the only German bandleader whose life has been made into a film: The film made by Erik Ode in 1955 was called Music in the Blood . In the main role was Viktor de Kowa ; the singer Gitta Lind and Bill Ramsey also played.

Discography

  • Kiss me, please, please kiss me (Hans Carste / Klaus-S. Richter / Fritz Reiter), Kurt Widmann and his dance orchestra from the "Imperator-Diele" Berlin, vocals: Paul Dorn , recording: May 1938
  • It's written in the stars (Werner Eisbrenner / Ernst Hübner), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra from the "Imperator-Diele" Berlin, vocals: Paul Dorn, recording: June 1938
  • Never let the woman who loves you cry (Friedrich Schröder / Hans Fritz Beckmann), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra from the "Imperator-Diele" Berlin, vocals: Paul Dorn, recording: September 1938
  • Lambeth Walk (Noel Gay / Dougles Furber / Arthur L. Rose), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra from the "Imperator-Diele" Berlin, recording: November 1938
  • Can love be a sin (Lothar Brühne / Bruno Balz), vocals: Grete Wasberg (= Greta Wassberg ), recording: December 1938
  • Ti-Pi-Tin (Maria Grever / Klaus S. Richter / Fritz Raiter), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra from the "Imperator-Diele" Berlin, vocals: Hans Horsten (= Erwin Hartung ), recording: February 1939
  • St. Louis Blues (William C. Handy), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, recorded in April 1939
  • You can only give your heart once ( Franz Grothe / Willy Dehmel), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra from the "Imperator-Diele" Berlin, vocals: Ludwig Bernhuber (= Luigi Bernauer ), recording: May 1939
  • Three Little Fishies (Saxy Dowel), John Webb and his Orchestra; Recording: August 1939
  • Why is it that you don't like me ( Willy Berking / Arthur Böttcher), Kurt Widmann and his dance orchestra, vocals: Michael Hafer (= Rudi Schuricke), recording: January 1940
  • Rose-Marie (Rudolf Friml / Otto A. Harbach), Kurt Widmann Dance Orchestra, recorded in August 1940
  • Who wants to go dancing with me today ( Heinz Munsonius / Klaus S. Richter / Fritz Reiter), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra from the "Imperator-Diele" Berlin, recording: September 1940
  • I have a weakness for blonde women (Benny de Weil / Ralph Maria Siegel ), Kurt Widmann dance orchestra, vocals: Rudi Schuricke, recording: September 1940
  • Don't have to be sad (Werner Kleine), Kurt Widmann Dance Orchestra, December 1940
  • Have you ever kissed in the dark? , Kurt Widmann with his large dance orchestra, vocals: Erich Bergau , recording: August 1942
  • That's My Rhythm (Yes, that's my rhythm) (Kurt Widmann), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, vocals: Rudi Schuricke , recording: November 22, 1946
  • Hey Ba-Be-Ri-Ba ( Lionel Hampton / Curley Hammer), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, recorded on November 29, 1946
  • Ali Baba (Ernesto Lecuona / Georges Tabet), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, recorded on November 29, 1946
  • Sentimental Journey (Bud Green / Les Brown / Benjamin Homer), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, vocals: Detlev Lais , recording: December 13, 1946
  • Call me by phone (Willy Berking / Peter Frankenfeld / Peter Schaeffers), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, vocals: Gerhard Wendland , recording: December 19, 1949
  • I know my Pappenheimer (Oh Babe!) ( Louis Prima / Milton Kabak / Hans Bradtke), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, vocals: Ilja Glusgal and the ABC quartet, recording: November 7th, 1951
  • Twelfth Street Rag (Euday L. Bowman / Andy Razaf), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, recorded on November 24, 1951
  • In the old harbor bar (Ivory Rag), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, recording: December 17th, 1951
  • Cocktail Boogie ( Martin Böttcher ), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, recorded on December 17, 1951
  • Don't get excited (Kurt Widmann / Lem Arcon), Kurt Widmann and his orchestra, vocals: Delia Doris and the Rigithas, recording: December 1st, 1952

literature

  • Michael H. Kater: A daring game. Jazz under National Socialism . Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-423-30666-1 .
  • Bernd Meyer-Rähnitz, Frank Oehme, Joachim Schütte: The "Eternal Friend" - Eterna and Amiga; The discography of shellac records (1947-1961). Albis International Bibliophilen-Verlag, Dresden-Ústí 2006, ISBN 80-86971-10-4 .

swell

  1. ^ Kempowski in the program "Mein Kriegsende", WDR television, April 13, 2005 ( Memento from November 15, 2005 in the Internet Archive )

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Widmann, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Widmann, Kutte (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German jazz musician and orchestra leader
DATE OF BIRTH March 2, 1906
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 1954