RARITY # 32: SCHRÄGE MUSIK

Max Greger Combo

Telefunken, Germany, 1952

Onxidlib did it again!  Here are two superb Jump Blues recorded in Germany in 1952.  If you ever organise a blindfold test for blues / rhythm & blues buffs, play them any of those two sides, you'll confuse them 100%. They’d never guess the honking tenor was a German saxman / band leader probably better remembered for Schlager / Easy Listening than for gritty jump blues (at least that was the kind of music I knew him for  ...  up to now).  The guy’s MAX GREGER.

Well I must concede I had misconceptions about this guy.  He certainly recorded a lot of commercial stuff but he surely was a real jazzman and he knew how to blow the blues when he wanted to .  Too bad it did not happen more often.  

Just read here.

MAX GREGER COMBO  "SCHRÄGE MUSIK"

• Sonny Gray (Grey?), trumpet (1)
• Hugo Strasser, alto saxophone (1)
• Max Greger, tenor saxophone
• Klaus Ogermann, piano
• Hans Lehmann, bass
• Silo Deutsch, drums

1. ·         Leapin' With Max  3:38 (solos: Max Greger + Sonny Gray)
2. ·         Night Train       2:56 (solo: Max Greger)

Recorded in Munich, Bavaria on November 26, 1952.

TELEFUNKEN UX 4527 (also TELEFUNKEN A 11370 with one title more "Tip Top Boogie").

A bit of history

(thanks to Herr Professor Onxidlib, PhD Faculty of Obscure Records)

The title "Schräge Musik" could be seen as  funny - schräg means angular, crooked or oblique,
or as not  funny at all :  "Schräge Musik" was the Nazi term for Jazz. They even made an anti-aircraft weapon during WW2 which they used to fire at -mostly english planes - from below.   They called it "Schräge Musik".

It is quite possible that Max Greger, or the guys from the label, did know this fact - whether they made insofar a deliberate decision to name it "Schräge Musik" I do not know but I assume that this is true.

More info on Schräge Musik here.

Source : http://www.klaus-muempfer.de/jazz-photos-9.htm

p.s.  the tracks were ripped from a +EP with these two tracks by Max Greger and two by Erwin Lehn.  Unfortunately the Erwin Lehn tracks were beyond redemption.  If anyone has the EP (cover below), we'd love to get a rip of the Lehn's tracks.  Thanks in advance.