They could play seven instruments each, critics hailed them as the best jazz combo in 1920s Berlin, and the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker fought to secure them as their backing band. But after the Nazi takeover, and frustrating years of exile and internment in Australia, the legacy of Weintraubs Syncopators was lost in the mists of time.
Now, 100 years after their formation, the Weimar republic’s tightest jazz band returns to the city that once adored them. Not in the flesh, but on canvas: on 21 October, a painting of the group will go on permanent display at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, after the institution acquired it from its previous owners in Canada.
