[78-L] three riddles

[Michael Biel]

Jan Hovers wrote:
> Dear Mike,
> You are really of great help! Unfortunately my realplayer doesn’t want to play the Real-audiofiles of the website you have sent. Are you able to listen to the file of The Sounds of Jazz to compare it with the recording on my website, to hear if it is the same?
>   

I also had problems with their RealAudio file, although they all used to 
play for me.  I did hear yours just fine. 

> The biography of Tsfasman is really an eye-opener for me, as I have been searching for information on him for years. Thanks again.
>   

I personally found it interesting that he was born in Zaporozhie, 
Ukraine, which is the city where a good friend of mine lived -- until I 
was able to bring him over here and now he lives out on Long Island.  
He's not a record collector, but he did find for me the LP of a piano 
suite from Peter and the Wolf that I had not known about and have not 
found another copy on vinyl since (it is out on CD but that is probably 
also out of print).

> But then I am also a little puzzled. I understand from your info that this record was recorded in 1938. And then again it was pressed/reissued in the fifties, as you can tell by the label. I have always thought that jazz was not allowed during the years of the USSR. Am I wrong in this respect?
>   

It came and went and came and went.  One day jazz musicians were heroes 
of the state and the next they were in gulogs.  The bio talks about a 
letter of tribute to him from Shostakovich in 1951 and a jubilee concert 
in 1956 in Leningrad, and it is possible that this Leningrad pressing 
might have been around that time.  There was a Melodiya LP in 1986  M60 
47455 008 that I hope I have, and some tracks on one or two of the early 
volumes of a eagerly sought-after series of LPs on the history of Soviet 
jazz (I only have 7 of the 21 or so volumes).  I do have the post-soviet 
CD and I still occasionally see copies in Brighton Beach shops in 
Brooklyn.  Big Band jazz was always very popular, and the most popular 
American film of all time in the USSR was Sun Valley Serenade.  One of 
my first Soviet jazz albums was an Oleg Lundstrom album of songs from 
it, recorded in the 70s.  Dixieland was also popular at that time, and 
the Leningrad Dixieland Jazz Band made a bunch of LPs and even toured 
the U.S. and appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson!  None of 
their stuff seems to have been reissued on CD in Russia, and except for 
a series of artist-based CDs from the collection of my late friend 
Valarie Safooshkin, and a series of CDs of Utsov and another of Leshenko 
that Safooshkin did himself, there is not much Soviet jazz that has come 
out on CD.  They have completely ignored the vast amount of weird 
avant-garde jazz that sold hundreds of thousands of LPs in the 70s and 
80s because it was crap and only sold because it was thought by the 
intelligentsia that it was Westernized.  When I look at the pressing 
amounts printed on the sleeves it seems crazy.  This type of stuff 
wouldn't have sold 300 copies in the U.S., yet  some of them  were 
pressed in editions of 500,000. 

There is a great book about Soviet Jazz titled "Red and Hot: The Fate of 
Jazz in the Soviet Union" by S. Frederick Starr.  I just notice that 
there is a paperback edition that was updated in 2004 so I have just 
bought a copy on Amazon.  I have several copies of the original hardback 
edition.


> The Russian lady, who helped me translating the label some years ago, translated the title as “Quick Dance”. Is that correct or would you say by what the label indicates that the title “The sounds of Jazz” is more accurate?
>   

I don't know.  I would have to see a copy of an original pressing.  
Their website in the Russian language has some other sections not yet 
translated that include label pictures.  If you drop a line to the 
people running the patephon site they might be able to tell you.  I 
corresponded with them a couple of years ago when the site was new.  
Unfortunately the master of Soviet discography, my friend Safooshkin 
died suddenly a couple of years ago.  He would have known, and would 
have had an original copy to examine.  His son still has his collection 
(I hope) and his hand-written discographies (they would rival Rust if we 
can get them published).  He wasn't able to get beyond publishing about 
prominent
 vocalists before he died. 

> By the way, I surfed to russianrecords.com  but unfortunately it seems not to be online anymore. So I am sorry that I can’t say hello to your friend Alexander.
>   

I forgot the dash between the words.  This is the clickable URL 
http://www.russian-records.com/about.php
They are mostly involved with pre-revolutionary recordings.

> By the way, 2 years ago I visited Minsk in Belarus (in relation to the Beatles, but that is a different story) 

I'm one of the contributors to a Russian Beatles discography site.  
There was a TV program  The Beatles and the Kremlin on the History 
Channel here in the U.S. last month.  Wonderful show.  The Beatles are 
bigger there than even in England. 

> and to my surprise I walked into a sparkling tribute show in the main theatre with big orchestra and ballroom dancers, all in honour of the music of Tsfasman. I was surprised that his legacy was still so popular. And indeed, this same tune was on the programme. 
> Many thanks!
> Jan
>
>   

What we call oldies and nostalgia, they call "Retro" and this is part of 
it.  There is a retro section in every Russian store, and is always the 
first place I look.  But part of it is political -- a longing for the 
good old days of Communism.   There even are a series of CDs of reissues 
of songs about Stalin.  When I visited Moscow in 1995, the owner of a 
rock record label had a copy of the LP of the Soviet National Anthem on 
his wall to remind him of the BAD old days and how much better it was 
for him now!  That LP has since been reissued on Melodiya CDs.  (I have 
both the LP and the CD.) 

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com