Jazz in Germany

An overview of the evolution of Jazz music in Germany reveals that the development of jazz in Germany and its public notice differ from the "motherland" of jazz, the USA, in several respects.

One of the first books with the word "jazz" in the title originates from Germany. In his book Jazz - Eine Musikalische Zeitfrage (Jazz - A Musical Issue) of 1927, Paul Bernhard relates the term Jazz to a specific dance. When dancer Josephine Baker visited Berlin in 1925, she found it dazzling. "The city had a jewel-like sparkle," she said, "the vast cafés reminded me of ocean liners powered by the rhythms of their orchestras. There was music everywhere." Eager to look ahead after the crushing defeat of World War I, Weimar Germany embraced the modernism that swept through Europe and was crazy about jazz. In the dancing mania of the post-war period, there were not only modern dances such as the tango and foxtrot, but in 1920 also the Shimmy and in 1922 the Two-step. In 1925 the Charleston dominated the dance halls. Even when under great criticism Bernhard Sekles initiated the first academic jazz studies anywhere at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1928 - the first courses in the United States were started in the mid-1940s. The director of the jazz department was Mátyás Seiber. The jazz studies were closed by The Nazis in 1933.

The first mass-produced jazz records came out in the United States in 1917. By January 1920, "Tiger Rag" had already been marketed by a German record company. In the early 1920s, the clarinetist and saxophonist Eric Borchard was making recordings in Germany. Borchard's first recordings show a heavy influence of Alcide Nunez; he soon developed his own style. By 1924 his band was comparable to good American bands such as the Original Memphis Five. Borchard's band included New Orleans trombonist Emile Christian. From 1920 to 1923, due to both economic turmoil and inflation, larger German jazz orchestras that played the new jazz dances were a rarity. Initially, a trio with a pianist, a drummer and a "Stehgeiger" (standing violinist), who also played the saxophone, was most common. Only after 1924 an economic stability was achieved, and an economic basis for larger dance orchestras was possible, like those founded by Bernard Etté, Dajos Béla, Marek Weber, Efim Schachmeister, and Stefan Weintraub. It was the predominant element of improvisation that was met with a lack of understanding in Germany, where people had always played concrete written notes; Marek Weber, for example, demonstratively left the podium if its nightly band played jazz interludes.

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