Dajos Béla and his dance orchestra

Dajos Béla, the leader of a popular salon orchestra in the 1920s Berlin, was born 1897 in Kiev, of a Russian Jewish father and a Hungarian mother. His real name was Leon Golzmann.

He served as a soldier during WWI, then studied music in Moscow, after which he moved to Berlin. There, he started playing in local venues as a violinist. He was contacted by Carl Lindström AG, a leading gramophone company, to make recordings. He started his own orchestra, and it was at this period that he changed his name to me more Hungarian-sounding Dajos Béla.

Along with those of Paul Godwin and Marek Weber, his orchestra became one of the most popular in Germany but even abroad. It played Hungarian and Romanian inspired themes, but also jazz, (albeit under other names), and even classical music, from Johann Strauss among others, with Dajos Béla himself as soloist. They played on the radio and in some of Berlin’s best hotels (Adlon, Excelsior), and even, once a week, in Copenhagen.

Many well known musicians played with him, and also actors like Marta Eggerth and MaxHansen. He made recordings with the legendary vocal group Comedian Harmonists.

In 1933 he had to leave Germany and in 1935 he came to Argentina, where he continued his succesful career, on the Radio Splendid station among others. He died in 1978 in what had become his new country, a country which under those years received other Jewish musicians like Efim Schachmeister.

Click to hear Dajos Béla's music!