GERMAN BAND: Conrad Metterle / Unschuld Walzer / Arion 528 / 1923

Описание: Conrad Metterle (1888-1963) was a German bandleader, born in what is now Romania near the border with Hungary. At the age of 18 he traveled to New York City and began working as a bartender, then ran his own confectionery store as well as a dance band. In 1917, he recorded three tunes for Columbia Records as ‘Metterles Schwabische Kapelle’ (Metterle’s Swabian Band). From April 1918 to February 1919, Metterle served in the US Army, attaining the rank of Musician 3rd Class as a sousaphone player.

After discharge, Metterle opened an ice cream store, and, in 1923, returned to recording, this time at Gennett’s New York studio. Ten tunes were recorded that February and released on Gennet or Arion, with some released on both labels. All were 12” records instead of the standard 78 rpm size of 10”, allowing for over 4 minutes of music as opposed to just 3. Metterle recorded another eleven tunes in April, and ten in October of 1923. Gennet released only six of these sides, while the remainder were Arion issues. (Arion was based in Philadelphia and active only in the early 1920s.) Although some records bore Metterle’s name, many were credited to “Schwäbische Bauern Kapelle” (Swabian Peasant Band), or “Original Frankische Bauern Kapelle” (Original Franconian Peasant Band).

When Prohibition ended in 1933, Metterle and his wife, Helen (1898-1983, m. 1913), transformed the ice cream store into the Old Seidelburg restaurant, which endured until the 1960s. Metterle appeared to have given up music professionally, as his newspaper notices in the 40s and 50s highlighted primarily his yachting and fishing exploits. A couple of years before Metterle’s death in 1963, the New York Daily News published a piece by John Chapman, summarizing his life and recounting anecdotes about ice cream, prohibition and Irving Berlin:

“Conrad is a spare, quiet-spoken gentleman of respectable years who operates the Old Seidelburg, a German-style restaurant on Third Ave. not far from where I work. It sells more beer than any other establishment in this city - enough per day, perhaps, to float Conrad's yacht.

“Metterle came to this country from Germany in 1906 when he was a kid, found a job and a fine rooming house in Yorkville for $4 a week, excellent meals included. After doing his bit for Uncle Sam and Irving Berlin in World War I, he opened his own place on Third Ave.—an ice cream parlor.

“Up the avenue, down the avenue and across the street were speakeasies, the wealthy proprietors of which told Conrad he was a chump not to get into the racket. But Conrad stuck to ice cream until repeal came. Now all the speaks and their uneasy proprietors are gone, but he is at his same old stand, on a stool back of the front end of the very long bar.

“Like anybody of his age and experience, Conrad Metterle likes to reminisce, for anybody with any sense would rather live in the past than in the present. So, one recent day he recalled the time in 1917 when his beloved adopted country drafted him. Out at the camp they thought they'd make a bugler out of him, but after a period of training he was put to work pooping the sousaphone in a Coast Guard band. The other day he recalled the bugling period.

“‘They must have had 40 of us guys out there practicing at the same time,’ he recalled. ‘There was a fellow in the camp named Berlin who said he was a song writer, and he was working on song about us. He worked on it several days, fixing it here and there, before he got it right.’

“The song, inspired or impelled by 40 fledgling buglers practicing Reveille was ‘Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.’ Conrad continued, ‘I haven't seen Berlin since that time at camp, but I understand he has done very well. He may have made as much money as I have.’”
[New York Daily News, September 6, 1961]

[Unschuld Walzer, Conrad Metterle (as C. Metterle Kapelle), Arion 528, recorded 4/1923, matrix 6622]
The flip side of this disk is Lovringer Landler:    • GERMAN BAND: Conrad Metterle / Lovringer L...  
Seppes geheim Genüsse:    • German Accordion: 'Handharmonika' / Oceana...