Tribute To Coco Schumann & Ghetto Swingers

»I am a musician who was in a concentration camp. Not a concentration camp inmate who makes music,« Coco Schumann (1924-2018) always emphasised. During National Socialism, jazz was considered »degenerate music«, but he played it anyway. In March 1943, Coco Schumann was denounced and deported to Theresienstadt. 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 Heinz Erhardt film. Alexander Kranich tells the story of this exceptional guitarist and will play Schumann’s original guitar from the 1940s at the concert.