Ruth Hohmann: the first lady of East German jazz sings again

Under communism anything American was unwelcome, so Ruth Hohmann fell silent. But that changed when the Berlin Wall fell – and now, at 80, she is busier than everThey called her the Ella Fitzgerald of the East, the first lady of East German jazz, a pocket rocket with a voice so versatile it could make an audience laugh, cry and punch the air before the chorus.But Ruth Hohmann, born in Bach's birthplace of Eisenach in 1931, was not only the No 1 female jazz singer in the early days of East Germ...

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