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Bully Buhlan

BULLY BUHLAN UND BERLIN...

... that is probably an inexhaustible topic. Of course, the fact that he was born in Berlin on February 3, 1924, plays an important role. The fact that he grew up in the district of Lichterfelde, which is streaked with greenery, may not be so decisive. Marbles - if they are especially big, they are also called buckers - can be played everywhere. Hans-Joachim, as his teachers called him at that time, was always a bit smarter than his teammates when playing, and he showed with a certain pride his very great Bucker: "Kiek ma', jewonnen!

So, as is well known, the Berlin stroke of the tongue does not stop at district borders. And so'Bully' became a typical Berlin boy, optimistic, sometimes cheeky, friendly and occasionally even, with especially pretty girls, a little shy. And that's how he seemed later - at least in the films he shot in the fifties. This guy was in demand, with the funny songs written by Heino Gaze, Fritz Schulz-Reichel, Hans Carste, Michael Jary or Lotar Olias. And also at his stage appearances one did not notice him as the star, who he undoubtedly was. In a word: he was likeable - our Bully! Success didn't go to his head. And he was happy when the audience liked his songs and clapped accordingly.

His real career aspiration was a supposedly completely dry occupation, which is connected with paragraphs and regulations. But after a certain time the jurisprudence was'put aside', because in the meantime the talented hobby musician, who actually only wanted to finance his everyday life with his piano playing besides his studies, had already become something like a professional. And when Michael Jary brought him to the RBT-Orchestra in Berlin's Funkhaus in Masurenallee shortly after the end of the war, the decision for the swing was probably quite clear.

And Jary also discovered the sympathetic voice of his pianist, which he then only placed in front of the vocal microphone during the orchestra recordings. And thus the young Mr. Stud. jur. finally became a pop star, although at that time nobody knew this term yet. Buhlan was also exactly the type of young man who represented the post-war period. His partner was Rita Paul. They were new faces, not yesterday's stars, they corresponded to the new generation, which went with optimism and a good mood to the certainly not easy reconstruction of the rubble fields that their parents had left them.

Buhlan got to know swing in the middle of the war, not only the musical forms, but also the feeling of life of this music, which is supported by a strong optimism. In the two'strongholds' of swing in Berlin, he experienced how electrifying this music was for the audience during his performances as a pianist. He played in the legendary'Groschenkeller' in Kantstraße 126 - a former artists' pub that developed into a meeting place for swing fans.

The jazz guitarist Coco Schumann was there, Ilja Glusgal sometimes sat down at the drums, and after his classical recordings with the chamber orchestra Ernst von Benda Helmut Zacharias came to the'Groschenkeller' in the Funkhaus in the Masurenallee, unpacked his violin and swung "what was worth it". And right in the middle of it - Bully Buhlan. That was still music "on division" - from the evening receipts the musicians got - neatly divided between the restaurateurs and the respective number of musicians - a few marks. It wasn't much, but being able to play there more than made up for the meagre income.

He signed a contract with Café Leon on Kurfürstendamm for the then really not bad monthly salary of 850 Reichsmark - 4 hours a day - from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. - "service" at the piano, a break from 9 p.m. to 9.15 p.m., and days off on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month. And he played with Hans Werner Kleve, a bandleader who, despite the strict requirements of the Reichsmusikkammer, was not afraid to offer his audience unadulterated swing in the middle of the most difficult time.

Kleve, who celebrated his 90th birthday on 26 July 1997 with great cheerfulness, is still addressed by the young people who got to know Swing at Café Leon and the young people who want to know "what it was like back then". Bully Buhlan at the piano. By the way, everyone who heard him at that time thought that his style was similar to that of Count Basie, who was known from records. And then late in the evening there were musicians who simply'joined in': trumpeter Macky Kasper, who later played his sensational choruses with Werner Müller, drummer Joe Glaser, after the war with the Rediskes, the swing guitar

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