[78-L] three riddles

[Kristjan Saag]

Benno wrote:

> Yes, some may think that Jazz and Blues were forbidden in communist
> countries, but they were not. They were part of the anti-capitalist 
> propaganda.
> The ideology was that Jazz and Blues were the music of those oppressed by
> capitalists.
> It was the music of 'comrades'./snip

As with jazz in Germany it was not just one way, one policy, but many, often 
contradictory and changing over time.
The relative freedom of art in 1920's Soviet Union was good for jazz as 
well, but jazz as an anti-capitalist art form was never an easy subject for 
the ideologists. It's anarchic energy was similar to the energy of the 
radical futurist movement in art, poetry, architecture etc, which, at the 
end of the day, had to be taken care of and brought within the realms of 
collective, positive and well-structured proletarian art.
So with jazz. The doctrine of social realism was declared in 1934; in 1936 
there were still vivid discussions in Pravda and Isvestija as to which type 
of jazz was right for the Soviet people, but in a few year's time jazz had 
become standardized, the Official State Orchestras swelling from 14 piece 
bands to the size of symphony orchestras, smaller ensembles playing a 
mixture of tangos, waltzes and jazz tunes and after the war repression set 
in: jazz was more or less banned and didn't recover before the late 1950's 
after Stalin's death and the advent of Willis Conover.
Kristjan