[Dixielandjazz] Dance band rules during the 3rd Reich

Tue Jan 19 01:44:24 PST 2010

If this particular list is authentic, I cannot say, but there were certainly rules in this vein.

I know this firsthand from musicians who played in that time. A very good friend of me, from Germany is 82 years now, grew up in the eastern part of Germany, was lucky to be just too young to actually have to join the army at that time. He told me that he always was listening to the American and English radio. This was strictly forbidden! But in doing so he was one of the first musicians in that country who could play that music and after the war had really awful lots of work. After the war he studied classical clarinet and even then his Professor forbade him to play either  Saxophone or jazz, which he did secretly. He became a very much sought after player having a good job in major symphony orchestras, but always willing to sit in with big bands esp. as second alto, and teaching at conservatory till the age of 75 and playing professionally till the age of 78. 
I worked with him in the Cologne Opera house in his last 3 professional years and his stories were and indeed are priceless!

In my own country, the Netherlands, I have seen some regulations from the time our country was occupied.

There were some very strict rules about drum solos in negro vein that were not allowed to last longer then 2 bars, or 4 bars when it was an imitation of them. Of course this was totally sick, but there were people coming to these evenings actually counting bars. It always wondered me how they made up the difference between the 2.

A third thing was that English or American titles were forbidden in general.

So musicians made up translations. South Rampart Street Parade thus became : Ramp In De Zoutmanstraat.

They claimed it were original compositions. Which they wer not of course.

These titles were actually jokes in Dutch that the Germans could not understand the double bottom of, so of course even more fun to the musicians who played them. But this was dangerous practice as there were always people around the corner who were willing to reveal these secret jokes. That could really mean trouble.

Then there is another pretty sick story from that time.

In Germany before the war was one of the first great classical saxophonists. His name was Sigurd Rasher. He started as a clarinet player but loved the sax and made it his premier instrument. Many of the first important works for saxophone were dedicated to him, like the Glazounow saxophone concerto and many, many others. A lot was written in the 1930s.

When the nazis became gradually more strict during that decade there came these weird regulations. The saxophone was considered American (Which was totally wrong, since it actually was invented by a Belgian who later went to France).

And it was considered a Negro instrument as well. So poor Mr. Rasher had to flee his own country, the only reason being the choice of his instrument. He did a succesfull solo concerto in New York then, but then was not accepted in the US, because he was German! He fled to Cuba and for several years was doing country labour to stay alive.

Finally after years he was accepted in the USA because of his wife , who was accepted as a refugee. I believe she was Danish if memory doesn't fail me.

The stories of musicians growing up during that era, being it Germany (Prof. Horst Botcher), England (Ian Whealer) or my country the Netherlands (Jenne Meinema) have one thing in common, after the war was over for several years there was work for musicians beyond believe. They worked day and night, even musicians who could not play much.

I have a sick joke with another music friend of mine who is German. We noted that classic jazz was really popular after both world wars, so what should we do to make it popular again........

Kind regards,

Bert Brandsma

(Now working in the Cologne Opera House for 2 months and happily that saxophone and jazz are permitted now!)

> From: tubaman at tubatoast.com
> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:43:04 -0800
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Dance band rules during the 3rd Reich
> CC: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> To: dixieorkest at hotmail.com
> 
> Snopes has plenty to say about this one:
> 
> http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=49218
> 
> this is the Snopes forum, not the "official" Snopes determination but 
> there seems to be a lot of problems with this one, especially that it 
> has no web cross-references except itself, non-historical proven names 
> and titles (and Germany is big on titles,) and some "cuteness" in 
> details.
> 
> It is hard for me to say - my studies of Nazi German music are limited 
> - but while there may have been a governmental edict against jazz 
> performances and recordings, I don't think it was this one. (Or it is 
> a very bad and loose translation - and no original German text seems 
> to be available.)
> 
> Doing a bit more Googling, I find:
> http://irom.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/humor-nazi-germanys-dance-band-rules-of-1940/ 
> and
> http://irom.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/fiction-part-2-nazi-germanys-dance-band-rules/
> 
> > My initial post about the alleged Nazi Germany Dance Band rules was 
> > subsequently identified by Russian jazz writer Cyril Moshkow as an 
> > element in a fictional work by writer Josef Skvorecky.
> 
> (this is just a snip - please read the whole thing and the follow-up 
> links for further possible clarification.)
> 
> Dave Richoux
> 
> On Jan 18, 2010, at 5:50 PM, billsharp wrote:
> 
> >>> Nazi Germany's Dance Band Rules and Regulations During The 3rd Reich
> 
> snip
> 
> 
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