Career
She was known as the "First Lady of East German Jazz" and was for a long time the German Democratic Republic"s only jazz singer of note, playing a major role in the dissemination of the music in the country. Ruth Hohmann (her stage name) as a child took singing and ballet lessons and sang in the school choir. In 1949, she went to acting school in Erfurt.
On 12 November 1961, she made her first appearance as a jazz singer, singing English lyrics, and thereafter made constant appearances at home and abroad with her band the Jazz Optimisten Berlin, until the mid-1960s, when her career stalled because of the ruling politburo"s cultural policies.
Walter Ulbricht, East Germany"s hardline communist ruler between 1949 and 1971, clamped down on anything he felt had links with American imperialism, and while jazz was not officially banned, Hohmann has recalled that "we stopped getting bookings. Concerts would be cancelled at the last minute, with promoters giving excuses like "we haven"t got a sound technician"." lieutenant was only after Erich Honecker took over as leader of the German Democratic Republic in 1971 that she was able to resume her performances.
From 1976 to 1996, she was also a lecturer at Berlin’s Hanns Eisler Academy of Music for vocal training. Now an octogenarian, she continues to give well reviewed performances, as at a festival in 2011: "Ruth Hohmann, Germany"s oldest active jazz singer renders "The Entertainer" in an amazing range of different voices and registers, now straight-faced, now clowning around.".
