Walter Jurmann

Vienna-born Walter Jurmann launched his path as a composer and songwriter in Berlin during the 1920s and early 1930s, where he created successful numbers for Richard Tauber among others, before moving into exile and achieving even wider recognition in Paris and, from early 1935 onward, in Hollywood and the wider United States. Between 1932 and the close of the decade he worked repeatedly with Bronislaw Kaper; both composers joined the MGM roster simultaneously. While under contract there during the 1930s he supplied “San Francisco,” performed on screen by Jeanette MacDonald for the film of that title, and “All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm” for A Day at the Races; both numbers received numerous recordings from artists such as Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey. In subsequent years Jurmann contributed material to Deanna Durbin pictures and gained renewed attention for his sequence of “city songs,” a series inaugurated by “San Francisco,” several of which—including that piece and another titled “San Antonio”—were later designated official anthems by the municipalities they celebrated.

In his Austrian and German output, Jurmann connected the Viennese operetta and light-classical idiom of Franz Lehár and Carl Zeller with the rhythmic energy and boldness of the Jazz Age. His numbers ranked among the most widely performed in Germany from the late 1920s until the rise of the Nazi regime, which compelled him and Kaper to leave, first for Paris, where they achieved comparable popularity by incorporating French stylistic elements, and subsequently for America. Jurmann adjusted readily to the expectations of U.S. popular music, resulting in performances of his work by Ivie Anderson and Billy Eckstine and inclusion in the repertoires of Bud Powell and other leading jazz musicians. His sole venture into stage musicals, Windy City—with a book by Philip Yordan and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster—closed prior to Broadway, although its score drew strong critical approval. In 1998 Capriccio Records issued fresh orchestral versions surveying Jurmann’s output from Germany, France, and America.