Dance orchestra

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Bernard Etté with his dance orchestra in the Berlin Scala (1936)

A dance orchestra is a large-format orchestra that plays dance music - music for dancing that fits the time and society. They can be seen as the German version of the American big bands , similar to the smaller salon orchestras , in which the voices are usually only cast individually, correspond to the small bands.

history

Johann Strauss (son) had his first appearance with his dance orchestra on October 15, 1844 in the Viennese Café Dommayer and gave concerts and balls in the inns.

Of the many jazz styles, ragtime first came to Germany and was adapted by the first dance orchestras. The first German jazz record was Tiger Rag / Indianola by the Original Excentric Band ( band leader F. Groundzell, Berlin; Homokord B-557, published January 15, 1920) on December 12, 1919 . Germany's first film orchestra, the UFA Symphony Orchestra, was founded as early as 1918, primarily responsible for setting the silent films to music . After the sound film was introduced in 1930, the orchestra recorded in the "Great Synchronsaal" in Babelsberg , was reshuffled in 1932 and was now called the Ufaton Orchestra , later also the Ufa Dance Orchestra or the Ufaton Jazz Orchestra . Its director was initially Ralph Erwin (one of his first recordings: Into the Blue Life , from the film The Beautiful Adventure ; Premiere: August 18, 1932), who, however, had to emigrate to France in 1933 because of his Jewish origins. Successors were in particular Lothar Brühne and Wilhelm Greiss.

At that time, the big dance orchestras were in the tradition of swing music of the big bands and, in addition to jazz music, have increasingly included hits in their repertoire in Germany . Since the swing era, they have consisted not only of the wind and rhythm section of a big band, but also of a string section . Due to the exemption from military service, Germany had excellent dance orchestras even during the war, above all the Great Dance Orchestra of the Deutschlandsender under Georg Haentzschel , followed by the Ufa dance orchestra. Wilhelm Greiss led the Ufa orchestra in classics like Without you, the whole world is without sun for me (April 1932), You are my good comrade, my darling (December 1932), Every day that you give me is beautiful, Marie Luise (May 1933), Spring in Vienna (November 1941), As beautiful as today, so it has to stay (December 1941), Home, your stars (May 1942), We two go hand in hand (November 1942), Love letters (August 1943) or In the night people do not like to be alone (November 1943).

Since large-format dance orchestras were difficult to finance, they were mostly founded by radio broadcasters or integrated into them. That was the case in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Baden-Baden. Even Kurt Henkel was his from September 1, 1947 Radio Dance Orchestra Leipzig famous.

Willy Schneider - You'd have to be twenty again (June 1953) with the Hermann Hagestedt dance orchestra

Ludwig Rüth had made around 400 recordings with his orchestra since 1928 before he left Germany in 1938 to marry his Jewish partner. His last recordings were There is dance music on the radio today (from the film Filoda Home ; September 30, 1937), I'll Dream of You Every Night (December 1937) or When Evening Comes (April 1938).

Egon Kaiser founded his dance orchestra as early as 1929 and had hits like Southern Fire (June 1933), When there is luck (December 1933), You are so nice to me (1934), Listen, we say you (October 1934), The night is not just for sleeping (film Dance on the Volcano ; November 30, 1938) Can love be a sin? (January 1939), For 5 o'clock tea / In my garden the first violets bloom (August 1939), The spy behind the curtains (1939).

Since then, the large dance orchestras have functioned as typical accompaniments for pop interpreters on recordings. Friedel Berlipp (34 titles), Heinz Alisch (21), Kurt Edelhagen (8) and Erwin Lehn (6) played alternately for Fred Bertelmann . Margot Eskens brought Kurt Edelhagen into the recording studio for 26 titles, Adalbert Luczkowski for 24 titles and Werner Müller for 12 titles . Luczkowski played in 19 recordings for Angèle Durand , while Berlipp made 13 appearances with her. The record holder was Luczkowski, who made 92 appearances for René Carol alone . In addition to public appearances, studio work was the second most important source of income for dance orchestras.

The heyday of the dance orchestra came after the Second World War on German radio. Instead of the original recordings from records, the German broadcasters played the dance orchestras' own productions. The relatively small proportion of music - just 46 percent in the lunchtime program - was provided with “light entertainment” by the dance orchestra. So stood at October 9, 1953 Helmut Zacharias with his dance band on the program music at noon the NWDR , previously played Hermann Hagestedt also instrumental music .

Bandleaders and appearances

In dance orchestras and salon orchestras, the band leader was usually the founder , conductor and arranger . The orchestras were often named after him because of the prominent position of the band leader (Kurt Edelhagen, Friedel Berlipp, Adalbert Lutter ). This was also the case in Switzerland ( Radio Beromünster dance orchestra under the direction of Tibor Kasič) and Austria ( Horst Winter dance orchestra). The band leaders took care of the staffing of their dance orchestras. Due to the required double and multiple occupation with the same instruments, there are saxophone or trumpet movements in dance bands , their members are called sentence blowers. In the past, large-format dance orchestras regularly consisted not only of a wind section and a rhythm section , but also of a string section .

Dance or salon orchestras usually performed at tea dances or dance balls , accompanied pop singers to music recordings and played on the radio. Often it was not the original hits that were played here, but rather instrumental versions of the dance orchestras.

Famous dance orchestras (unless mentioned in the text)

Renowned dance orchestras are or were:

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Leopold Schmidt, Master of Tonkunst in the 19th century. , 2012, p. 180
  2. ↑ Deutschlandfunk from January 15, 2005, 85 years ago the first German jazz record came onto the market
  3. ↑ Bernd Hartwig, Things were different then , 2002, p. 128
  4. ↑ Joachim-Félix Leonhard, Medienwissenschaft , 2001, p. 1511
  5. ^ High German translation of the Jupp Schlösser song Die hinger de Gadinge stonn un spinxe
  6. ^ Konrad Dussel, Deutsche Rundfunkgeschichte , 2004, p. 210