Emil Mangelsdorff born 11 April 1925

Emil Mangelsdorff (11 April 1925 – 20 January 2022) was a German jazz musician who played alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet and flute. He was a jazz pioneer under the Nazi regime which led to his imprisonment. After World War II and years as a prisoner of war, he was a founding member of the jazz ensemble of Hessischer Rundfunk in 1958. He played with several groups and was active, also as an educator, until old age. 

Mangelsdorff was born in Frankfurt, as the son of the bookbinder Emil Albert Joseph Mangelsdorff (1891–1963), born in Ingolstadt, and his wife Luise, née Becker (1896–1976), from Wertheim. Mangelsdorff was introduced to jazz at age nine, when his mother switched to Radio Luxemburg, and he heard the voice of Louis Armstrong. Mangelsdorff remembered the exact moment he heard jazz for the first time. On Radio Luxembourg, following a Bach sonata and a French chanson, they played the American jazz musician Louis Armstrong. "All of a sudden, I got a high pulse. His music literally hit me and captivated me," Mangelsdorff recalled in the Gaienhof matinee. Since that experience, jazz had never let him go. 

Frankfurt Radio Jazz Ensemble '59 Emil far right.

His first instrument was accordion. The nine-year-old learnt to play jazz standards, which he then presented as an eleven-year-old on the streets of Frankfurt at carnival time. From then on, he formed a duo with a teenager four years his senior, and until 1939 they played on several evenings for dancing. However, the cheerful and exuberant swing stood in contrast to the ideology of National Socialism. The Szczecin newspaper wrote in 1938 that unsavory things were happening that were disguised as entertainment. 

Albert & Emil Mangelsdorff

In Szczecin, you could see people dancing as if they had stomach cramps – they called it swing. The editor called for the revocation of the licence of all organisers who would allow swing dancing. Swing orchestras, in which the musicians would play hot, scream on their instruments, stand up and play solos, would have to disappear. In order to discredit jazz, magazines printed fashion pictures with the hint of how ridiculous the style was. For Mangelsdorff, it was reason enough to orient himself on exactly these images and imitate the fashionable style. 

                          Here’s “Mezzanine Floor” from above album.

                                   

In 1942 and 1943, Mangelsdorff studied clarinet at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. As a member of the Frankfurt Hotclub Combo, with trumpeter Carlo Bohländer, bassist Hans Otto Jung and drummer Hans Podeh , he performed jazz and became a figurehead for Swing Youth, which led to his being imprisoned by the Gestapo. He was forced into the German army and was a Russian prisoner of war for four years. It was not until 1949 that Mangelsdorff was released by the Russians and allowed to return to Frankfurt. 

Aware that he had an incredible amount of catching up to do, he threw himself into the seething German jazz scene of the post-war period. It was only then that he finally decided on the instrument that was to shape him: the saxophone. He performed with his brother, the trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, but also in several changing groups such asf Joe Klimm and Jutta Hipp, and was also a member of the Frankfurt All Stars and of the jazz ensemble of the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk from 1958. In 1966, he founded Swinging Oil Drops, with Joki Freund, Volker Kriegel, Fritz Hartschuh and Günter Lenz. 

Mangelsdorff was influenced by swing. He continued to develop musically, playing bebop, fusion and cool. In 1964, he wrote an instruction manual for jazz saxophone. He played with Charles Mingus in New York and performed often in the Jazzkeller (jazz cellar) in Kleine Bockenheimer Straße, Frankfurt, sometimes together with his brother, trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff. He gave his last concert in Frankfurt's Holzhausenschlösschen on 1 November 2021. He also informed in schools about the Nazi era as a witness of the time, continuing remembrance work until old age. 

Mangelsdorff  was awarded the Goethe Plaque of the State of Hesse, is the recipient of the Hessian Jazz Prize and the Wilhelm Leuschner Medal, the highest award of the State of Hesse. He was a recipient of the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany and one of 13 honorary professors in Hesse. 

His first wife Simone, an operatic soprano, died in 1973. Monique (died 2018) was his second wife. Mangelsdorff died in Frankfurt am Main on 20 January 2022, at the age of 96. The veteran had planned his next concert for the beginning of February. In the Holzhausenschlösschen, which he liked to call his living room, the saxophonist had been giving regular concerts for years, and just before his death he wanted to give his 215th concert there. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Sudkurier, Frankfurter Rundschau & Frankfurter Neue Presse)