The Weintraubs Syncopators, a Berlin jazz-band

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At their peak, around 1928, the Weintraub Syncopators was the premiere hot jazz band in Germany. The group was formed by the pianist Stefan Weintraub and saxophonist/clarinetist Horst Graff in 1924. In 1927 pianist and arranger Friedrich Hollander took over leadership as Weintraub moved to drums.

In 1913, Weintraub began after graduation in his hometown Breslau (Wrocław)  apprenticeship in pharmacy and was drafted in 1916 for military service. After returning from the World War, he moved to Berlin, where he worked in the food industry. Jazz, the new American dance music, fascinated him; Weintraub was so talented as a pianist that he could reenact tracks easily. Together with the eight years younger Berliner Horst Graff, who played saxophone and also had organizational talent, he founded the dance band Stefan Weintraub, which soon got the name Weintraubs Syncopators. In 1924, the five-member band appeared for the first time.

The Weintraub Syncopators were so successful that their members became professional musicians and expanded the band. Among the members was the chemistry student Ansco Bruinier, who had received cello lessons, but also played trumpet, saxophone and Susaphon and mastered the art whistling in addition to the singing. His brother Franz S. Bruinier was the first composer of Bertolt Brecht (who worked later with Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler). As a pianist and composer, Franz Bruinier participated in musical-literary events, the so-called MA (for Montag Abend, "Monday Evening"), in which he participated in the Syncopators. Here Friedrich Hollaender got to know the group and took part in the revues supervised by him, where he himself took over the piano part. Already in 1927 the band performed in Max Reinhardt's revue "What they want", "Hetärengespräche", "That's you", "Das spricht Bände" and "Around us the Gedächtniskirche". With Hollaender’s entry, Stefan Weintraub switched from the piano to the drums.

Weintraub's Syncopators were fascinating by their musical and stylistic versatility between classical parody, Latin American dances, Viennese waltzes, French cabaret chansons, swing and Chicago jazz: the individual musicians changed several instruments in one title; between the pieces, they also changed clothes according to the topic. They also entertained the audience by imitating animal sounds, using other instruments, unusual tools such as kitchen utensils as instruments, or playing unfamiliar positions (e.g., lying on the floor). Theatrical, grotesque and clownish elements were so masterfully combined with musical entertainment and jazz that Weintraub's Syncopators was soon recognized as the most sought-after stage orchestra in Berlin. In the revue "Please come on board" they appeared as companions and teammates of Josephine Baker. 1928 it came to first recordings. The band consisted of Friedrich Hollaender (piano), Stefan Weintraub (drums), Paul Aronovici (trumpet), John Kaiser (trombone), Horst Graff (clarinet, alto saxophone), Freddy Wise (tenor saxophone, bass saxophone and clarinet), Cyril "Baby " Schulvater (banjo and guitar) and Ansco Bruinier (trumpet, tuba and bass). Stefan Weintraub had the skills of a bandleader and ensured the artistic and human cohesion between the different musicians.

The Syncopators were also involved on September 6, 1929 in the scandal-ridden premiere of the play "The Merchant of Berlin" by Walter Mehring at Erwin Piscator's theatre, to which Hanns Eisler had written the music. They also appeared in the first german sound movie The Blue Angel, which Joseph von Sternberg staged in 1930, starring Marlene Dietrich. The jazz arrangements came from Franz Wachsmann, Hollander's successor as pianist of the group. Hollaender brought the band for some recordings, where they appeared as  "Friedrich Hollaender and his jazz symphonists". Presumably, the syncopators were also involved in recordings by Peter Kreuder and Marlene Dietrich. Also in 1930 they were together with Paul Morgan, Max Hansen and the tenor Carl Jöken in the cabaret sound film Das Kabinett des Dr. Larifari (not Caligari...), directed by Robert Wohlmuth.

In 1933 the Weintraubs Syncopators played side by side with Hans Albers in the UFA-film "Today it depends" („Heute kommt’s drauf an“). This was the last of 20 feature films in which they were involved, before they were affected as a so-called "non-Aryan" in Germany by the performance ban. They undertook extensive foreign tours - even to the Soviet Union (1935, 1936) and to Japan (1937). The group wanted to emigrate to Australia. With a lucrative contract, the Weintraub Syncopators arrived in Australia in July 1937, where a month-long tour began in October. Australian audiences reacted enthusiastically, but the musicians' union resisted by all means against the successful group, at that time still the most internationally known German jazz group.

Eventually they did settle in Australia, where Stefan Weintraub died in 1981.

 

Main source: Wikipedia