The Comedian Harmonists

Formed by three tenors, a baritone, a bass, and pianist Erwin Bootz, the Comedian Harmonists transformed early twentieth-century American vocal harmony into a European sound carrying an almost Teutonic stamp. Their selections roamed freely across jazz, pop, film music, opera, and cabaret, bringing widespread popularity in Germany and elsewhere in Europe during the early 1930s. Leader Harry Frommerman devised elaborate vocal lines that moved and changed within each piece, separating the ensemble from most other vocal groups of the era and later decades. Nazi interference fractured the Comedian Harmonists as the thirties advanced; after three Jewish members were instructed to drop Jewish melodies and then blacklisted, those singers departed for Austria. Both the exiled members and the remaining trio sought to continue the act by recruiting replacements. Long after the group’s heyday, a devoted following developed that embraced such unexpected admirers as rock critic Lester Bangs and leading folk-and-rock producer Joe Boyd, who assembled the first officially licensed American compilation of their recordings for Hannibal in 1999. The Comedian Harmonists’ story later supplied the basis for the film The Harmonists and the Broadway musical Band in Berlin.