“AMNESTY” FOR JAZZ

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27706, 9 July 1955, Page 2

“AMNESTY” FOR JAZZ

Russian Communists Change Attitude NO LONGER “CAPITALIST DEGRADATION” (From a Reuter Correspondent) MOSCOW. The Communist Party has abandoned its long standing drive to ban jazz as a relic of “capitalist bourgeois degradation,” “Soviet Music”, authoritative organ of the Union of Soviet Composers and guardians of Soviet music morality, has come round to the view that there is really nothing wrong about jazz. The Communists, particularly since the cold war, have kept jazz on the black list as an example of “Hollywood degeneracy”, from which cleanliving young Russians should be shielded. Even the saxophone vanished from the official list of approved musical instruments, and youngsters in music schools were barred from the study of accordion-playing. Now, jazz has been given an “amnesty” and the saxophone and accordion are considered fit instruments for any young Communist. This was disclosed by a popular Russian songwriter. Isaac Dunaevsky, in an article in “Soviet Music’’ in which he was bitterly critical of the Communist musical ideologists who kept light music in shackles. Dunaevsky admitted that the anti-jazz campaign had failed because, though jazz was barred, foreign records, even boogie-woogie, was brought into the country surreptitiously. “I consider that the attitude towards jazz* which has arisen in our light music the result of a sad misunderstanding. It seems this misunderstanding is now beginning to be realised also by the Union of Soviet Composers,” Dunaevsky said. Emphasising that “cacophonous jazz”, presumably a reference to the “red hot rhythm” of America, was not worth mentioning, he added. “I cannot understand what harm can be inflicted on a Soviet listener if he listens to good, beautiful, skilfully rendered jazz music.”

jazz music.” Russians, he declared, should study the best examples of Western light music, which should be played over the Soviet radio. Soviet composers should abandon attempts to “regulate” creative work. Dunaevsky’s article was unlikely to have been published in “Soviet Music” without approval from above—which suggests that the anti-jazz “line” has now been officially abandoned. It was interpreted here as a signal to composers to produce native Russian jazz.