Kranich Kollektiv - Tribute To Coco Schumann

In the organizer's words:

Alexander Kranich (guitar), Samantha Wright (clarinet), Max Jalaly (double bass), Axel Reichard (piano), Andy Smyrek (drums)

"I am a musician who was in a concentration camp. Not a concentration camp inmate who makes music," Coco Schumann (1924-2018) always emphasized. During National Socialism, jazz was considered "degenerate music", but he played it anyway. In March 1943, Coco Schumann was denounced and deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. He joined the jazz band "Ghetto Swingers", which was founded there. The music initially protected Coco from deportation to an extermination camp. He was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 and continued to make music there. He survived the hells of the concentration camp and after the war became the first German electric guitarist, made the first German "modern jazz" recordings with Helmut Zacharias and played in a film by Heinz Erhardt. Alexander Kranich tells the story of this exceptional guitarist and will play Schumann's original guitar from the 1940s at the concert.