Michael Fritzen

Michael Fritzen

Michael Fritzen (* 1938 in Rötha ) is a German musician , singer, lyricist and band leader .

Musical development

Michael Fritzen Quartet

After studying music as a teacher, Michael Fritzen founded his own band in 1963, the Michael Fritzen Quartet, to which bassist Wolfgang Eddy Greiser also belonged. Occasionally also cast as a quintet and sextet , the formation had dedicated itself to jazz . Other members were: Ernest Olah, Klaus Koch and Wolfgang Winkler . With the breakthrough of the beat movement in the GDR in the mid-1960s, he turned to modern dance music , which at the time was also known as "Big Beat". One of the best-known early beat recordings on GDR radio was the title Twisten , recorded on March 15, 1965. In 1969, the GDR label Amiga released recordings with this formation on the third record of their Modern Jazz Studio series .

Sputniks

Shortly after the recording of Twisten , Fritzen switched to the Sputniks as a saxophonist and was part of the band until they broke up in early 1966. The Sputniks were among the leading beat bands in the GDR at the time and were particularly exposed to the increasing pressure of the GDR authorities on the beat movement at the end of 1965. With the Sputniks, Fritzen can be heard on the LP The Early Years .

Jazz Optimists Berlin

Fritzen then joined the Jazz Optimists Berlin . This band was one of the most successful Dixieland bands in the GDR and worked with the soloists Ruth Hohmann and Manfred Krug .

Fritzen's steam band

In April 1975 Fritzen founded the Fritzens Dampferband together with Achim Mentzel (guitar, vocals) . The band also included: Fritze Born, Jürgen Schneider, Christian Kardaetz and the keyboardist Bernd Müller. The Berlin rock band saw themselves as a fun band and quickly became known nationwide thanks to their frequent presence on radio and television. The popularity of this band was primarily due to Nina Hagen , who, along with her hit You forgot the color film, had switched from the Automobil group to the Dampferband. Just like Nina Hagen, Gerd-Christian Biege (vocals) started a successful solo career after leaving the band. When Achim Mentzel had left the band in 1977, Fritzen took over the vocal part and made a name for himself by singing Udo Lindenberg songs as "the East German Udo". In 1980 the band was restructured and from then on consisted of Michael Fritzen, Bärbel Müller, Detlef Gebert, Christian Kardaetz (* 1940), Jürgen Schneider (* 1938), Kurt Klinkmüller (* 1922), Detlef Weiland (* 1948) and Wolf Baki.

Amiga released two singles by the band with Nina Hagen and one more in their quartet series .

Fritzen has composed, written, arranged and produced around 125 songs for the steam band. Of these, around 100 were rejected in the two state lectureships in the former GDR.

When Fritzen's application to leave the country was approved in 1984, the band renamed itself the Berliner Dampferband.

In 2005, the Fritzens Dampferband was again in the original line-up on the TV show Wiedersehen is joy on the MDR .

Swing Duo / Fritzens Swing Band

In the Federal Republic of Germany Fritzen worked as a primary school teacher. In 1990, after the political change in the GDR, he took the opportunity to return to Berlin (East) and devoted himself again to music. The result was the Swing Duo, in which Fritzen plays the saxophone and Hubert Katzenbeier plays the violin and trombone. The duo, occasionally supplemented by other musicians, offers Swing and Dixieland in high quality. In the swing band, alongside Fritzen and Katzenbeier, Christoph Adams (vocals, piano), Gerd Lübcke (guitar) and drummer Wolfgang Winkler play .

Book publication

In 2013 Michael Fritzen published his autobiography as an e-book under the name tasteless but cool .

Discography

• 1969: Modern Jazz Studio No. 3
• 1974: Hatschi waldera
• 1975: We dance tango
• 1977: Plim plim
• 1982: the early years

See also

• Music of the GDR

literature

• Götz Hintze: Rock Lexicon of the GDR. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89602-303-9 .
• Heinz P. Hofmann: Beat Lexicon. Performers, authors, technical terms . VEB Musikverlag Lied der Zeit, Berlin (GDR) 1977.
• Michael Rauhut : Beat in the gray area. GDR rock 1964 to 1972 - politics and everyday life (=  Basis-Druck-Dokument . Band 16 ). Basisdruck, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-86163-063-X .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fritzen's steamship band . Deutsche-Mugge.de. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
2. ↑ epubli Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8442-5354-2