Sigmund Petrushka

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Sigmund "Sid" Petruschka (actually Sigmund Leo Friedmann , later Shabtai Arye Petrushka ; born March 15, 1903 in Leipzig ; died December 14, 1997 in Jerusalem ) was a German, later Israeli jazz trumpeter , band leader , composer and arranger .

Live and act

Petrushka grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family . He was a son of the Brody couple Osias and Mina Petruschka. As a youth he worked as a cantor at the Jewish daily prayers. In 1916 he became a member of the Blue-White Jewish youth movement . He received piano and cello lessons and sang between 1919 and 1922 in the Gewandhaus Choir in Leipzig under Arthur Nikisch . In 1923 he moved to Berlin to study mechanical engineering , but also attended the Stern Conservatory to learn trumpet and double bass.

From 1928 he led the formation of Sid Kay's Fellows , a hot jazz band with Kurt “Kay” Kaiser (1906–1972) , formed in 1926 as an amateur band. But they soon played professionally as a dance orchestra and in theater performances. They also had an appearance in the film Pandora's Box (1928) by GW Pabst . Finally, from 1930 to 1932, they were engaged as the house chapel of the Palmengarten in the Berlin House Vaterland ; In October 1931 a recording session for the Tri-Ergon label took place. a. the title "The whole world is sky blue" was created (a song from the sound film Im Weiße Rös'l .) In early 1933 the band accompanied the clarinetist Sidney Bechet . The Sid Kay's Fellows also performed in Munich, Dresden, Frankfurt am Main, Vienna, Budapest and Barcelona. He worked in Dresden until April 6, 1933.

Petrushka was one of the few Jewish musicians in the early days of National Socialism who - after their Jewish identity was on record - could work legally in Nazi Germany until April 1933. A few months later, in November 1933, his membership in the Reichsmusikkammer was terminated, which severely restricted his career in the music industry. After that he was mainly active as a composer and arranger under a pseudonym, mainly for the big band of James Kok , which recorded Petruschka's composition "Flying Hamburger" (named after the express train of the same name ) for Grammophon in early 1934 . Petruschka also arranged Theo Mackebens tango "Speak Not of Faithfulness", which was played at the Berlin Press Ball in 1935 - "ironically in the presence of Joseph Goebbels ".

He was also active in the context of the activities of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden . Sigmund Petruschka played as a trumpeter in the opera and symphony orchestra of the Jewish Cultural Association and also directed a dance band of the JKB. He has received compositions for choral concerts and stage music. Recordings were made in 1934 with the singer Dora Gerson ("The world has become small"). With his Ensemble Sid Kay's Fellows he worked in 1935 on recordings of Willy Rosen as a studio formation (“In the Gasthof Zur Goldenen Schnecke”).

He also produced a record for Lukraphon with dance music with Hebrew texts, which incorporated motifs from Jewish folk music . The songs were sung by Ferris Gondosch , who was previously the drummer at Ben Berlin under the name Friedrich Goldstein . In 1935 he worked as a music arranger for the short film Hebrew Melody ; In 1938 he left Germany and emigrated to Palestine , where he worked for the radio and directed its orchestra. He wrote both chamber music and symphonic pieces. In 1947 he worked as an arranger and composer on the score for the documentary Adamah (directed by Helmar Lerski ).

In later years after the founding of the state of Israel, Petrushka headed the music department of Kol Yerushalaym ( Voice of Jerusalem ). In 1958 he became the head of the music department of the station Kol Israel ( Voice of Israel ); he held this post until his retirement. In addition, he worked from 1969 to 1981 at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem, where he taught orchestration. He was Alfred Goodman's arrangement teacher .

Discographic notes

  • Beyond Recall, CD 8 / A Record of Jewish musical life in Nazi Berlin, 1933-1938 ( Bear Family Records , ed. 2001)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 293.
  2. Jump up ↑ Jascha Nemtsov: Oskar Guttmann (1885-1943) and Alfred Goodman (1919-1999) Hentrich & Hentrich, 2009
  3. ↑ a b c Short biography (National Library of Israel)
  4. ↑ Martin Keune: Black Bottom: Detective novel . 2013
  5. ^ Jürgen Wölfer : Jazz in Germany. The encyclopedia. All musicians and record companies from 1920 until today. Hannibal, Höfen 2008, ISBN 978-3-85445-274-4 .
  6. ↑ a b Sid Kay's Fellows at Louise Brooks Society
  7. ^ Gramophone records
  8. ↑ a b Michael H. Kater : Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany , p. 39 f.
  9. ↑ FC DeCoste, Bernard Schwartz: The Holocaust's Ghost: Writings on Art, Politics, Law, and Education , 2000, p. 78
  10. ^ Inge Lammel: Jewish ways of life: a cultural-historical foray through Pankow and Niederschönhausen . Hentrich & Hentrich, 2007
  11. ^ Chronology of German cabaret in the Netherlands: 1933-1944 , Hsge. by HJP Bergmeier, Hamburg Office for German Exile Literature, 1998
  12. ↑ Actually Hermann Bick
  13. ↑ a b Sigmund Petruschka in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  14. ^ Karl Robert Brachtel: Alfred Goodman . Hans Schneider, 1993, p. 16
personal data
SURNAME Petrushka, Sigmund
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Friedmann, Sigmund Leo; Petrushka, Shabtai Arye
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Israeli jazz musician, band leader, arranger and composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1997
Place of death Jerusalem