Big Band Music: USA, USSR and Hitler's Germany -- Count Basie, Alexander Tsfasman and Otto Stenzel

"The big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz, a style of music which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1950s. Big Bands evolved with the times and continues to today. A big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, vibraphone, singers (or vocalists), and a rhythm section. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, stage band, jazz orchestra, society band and dance band may be used to describe a specific type of big band."--Wikipedia entry 2011

Here's the first composition, the oddly titled "Dance of the Gremlins" featuring the Count Basie  Orchestra from 1941.  This is an excellent clip for showing how a great band--which also included Buck Clayton and "Sweets" Edison--cam together in a "hot" number.         

Swing music originated in the United States in the 1930's, but by the end of that decade it was all over the world, even in Stalin's Soviet Union!   Nazi Germany allowed some swing bands on the radio. As the Second World War dragged on, the music was discouraged as "animalistic" and by 1942 most foreign band music was true swing tunes were banned from  the radio and out of music clubs.   Kids and adults who still tried to listen to foreign broadcasts or play the music in underground clubs faced ostracism and in many cases jail and labor camps for being non-conformists. 

Again, from Wikipedia: At that time, only a relatively small number of people in Germany knew how jazz music sounded in America - at that time, swing - and that it was Jazz. With the pressing wartime effort from 1941–1943, the Nazis accidentally fostered the jazz craze by forcing bands from Nazi-occupied nations in Western Europe to perform, bringing hot swing. Eventually, the Nazi party realized that jazz could not be removed entirely from Germany (WFMU Staff). The Nazis even re-developed and newly produced some pieces, giving them new lyrics, in special studios. One example is the song "Black Bottom", which was presented as "Schwarzer Boden". For some Germans, the banned foreign stations with jazz programs were very popular.

"The Nazis on the one hand would jam transmissions from the Allies' stations, but on the other hand would also copy them. The band Charlie and His Orchestra is considered as a negative example, also called Mr. Goebbels Jazz Band. Several of Germany’s most talented swing musicians, such as saxophonist Lutz Templin and vocalist Karl “Charlie” Schwedler, were active in a Jazz band. Here the Nazis replaced the original texts with their own provocative propaganda texts that were pro-Nazi and anti-American/British. For example, the lyrics for “Little Sir Echo” has anti-American/British appeal with lyrics such as “German U-boats are making you sore, You’re always licked, not a victory came through…You’re nice, little fellow, but by now you should know that you can never win this war!” Goebbels’ propaganda was broadcast over pirated short-wave frequencies into America, Britain, and Canada in order to spread fear and weaken the morale of Germany’s enemies (WFMU Staff).

"The situation intensified in 1942 with the entry of the United States in the war. For diplomats of foreign embassies and Wehrmacht members, a couple of jazz clubs continued to remain open in Berlin. In addition, individual, illegitimate venues and private parties still played jazz. In 1943 jazz record production was stopped.

The Swing-Jugend, or Swing Youth, was a movement among mainly youth from 14–20 years old who dressed, danced, and listened to jazz in defiance of the Nazi regime. The Nazi party acted against this movement by detaining several of the young leaders of the Swing Youth and sending them to concentration camps. However, the Swing Youth continued to resist the Nazi party by participating in prohibited swing and jazz activities (Neuhaus). Charlie and His Orchestra was moved in the still bombproof province.^[7] Jazz was also incorporated into musical works such as operas and chamber music through “art-jazz,” which utilized jazz-inspired and ragtime-inspired syncopated rhythms and modes. Famous operas such as Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf! and Boris Blacher’s Concertante Music for Orchestra are examples of art-jazz (Dexter)."

 

Here's Otto Stenzel's band doing a German jazz hit "Musik, Musik".  The seems to be the same music that was used in the 1970's for the theme from "The Muppet Show".