Lutz Binneboese

Lutz Binneboese was born in December 1942 and grew up in Berlin. At 13 his cousins gave him a trumpet for Christmas, and he later prepared for an audition at a music school in Berlin Mitte. Friends called him Binne.

He attended the Kaethe Kollwitz secondary school in Prenzlauer Berg. Around 11 November 1959 his eleventh grade class stayed at a rural school hostel at Kleinwall near Erkner, and he was asked to play for the carnival party. The maths teacher played piano and the hostel director found an old drum kit, and the improvised trio played jazzy dance tunes and hit songs. The deputy head then asked them to prepare music for the Christmas ball, and the band was born.

The school band was soon in demand at other schools and student clubs. Inspired by the Danish band Papa Bue, which played Berlin in January 1960, it became Papa Binnes Hot Five, and from 1961 Papa Binne's Jazz Band. At first it modelled itself on English trad bands, and as jazz won official acceptance in the GDR it turned increasingly to Dixieland and later to more varied, soul influenced pieces.

The band spent five years in Benno Besson's staging of Frieden at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, and from 1970 toured with actors Dieter Mann and Fred Dueren to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Scotland and West Germany, with later concerts in Cuba and Algeria. It recorded for Amiga, including Ja, wir san mit'm Radl da (1987), appeared on Ein Kessel Buntes and Berlin Original, featured in the 1981 DEFA documentary Dixieland Dixieland, and played the International Dixieland Festival in Dresden every year from 1973. Binneboese performed with Chris Barber.

Alongside music, Binneboese was a trained mechanical engineer and helped build up the printing works of the Berliner Kurier. He earned his professional musician's licence in a class with Dieter Birr and Peter Meyer of the Puhdys and Fritz Puppel of City.

Binneboese lived in Kleinmachnow, near Berlin, with his wife Almut and his family. He was the last surviving founding member of the band. When the band retired in December 2022 after 63 years, he said that one should stop when things are at their best.

Lutz Binneboese died on Saturday 7 November 2026 in a Berlin hospital after a serious fall down stairs, aged 83, one month before his 84th birthday. His wife Almut told the Berliner Kurier, which reported his death on 9 November 2026.

Papa Binne's Jazz Band was active for 63 years, from 1959 to 2022, making it one of the oldest jazz bands in Germany and one of the leading voices of hot jazz in the GDR. Its swing versions of children's songs helped launch the Kinder Dixieland concert series, and Binneboese is remembered as the jazz king of the GDR who kept the music alive through several political eras.