It's show time

As I head (soon) to another incredibly boring Bruges Group meeting (no fewer than three Conservative MPs) I leave  you with this sequence for which I must thank Duff and Nonsense. It's from Ship Ahoy, made in 1942 with what sounds like a real lulu of a plot but with Eleanor Powell  in the main part as a singer with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra. Other stars are Red Skelton and Bert Lahr  but imagine this: Frank Sinatra and Buddy Rich, who also perform with the orchestra were NOT listed.

Anyway, here are Eleanor Powell and Buddy Rich.


 

This is timely

The Russian Duma has passed a resolution that condemned Stalin and Soviet officials for the murder of Polish officers at Katyn and two other camps. About time, too. Needless to say, the Communist Party argued vehemently against the resolution but was outvoted. Of course, this is not a completely new move. The Russian government acknowledged the crime in 1992 but since then several newspapers close to successive governments revived the old story of the Germans being responsible.
Earlier this year a few key documents to do with Stalin's and Beria's guilt were published on the internet.

Nobody has ever been convicted over the massacre, with Russian prosecutors arguing that those responsible are now dead.

A Russian judicial investigation in 2005 only confirmed the execution of 1,803 victims, while the actual number of Polish prisoners killed at Katyn and other Soviet sites is generally held to be about 22,000, including about 8,000 military officers.

The Duma declaration called for the massacre to be investigated further in order to confirm the list of victims.

The Duma also argued that Katyn was a tragedy for Russia too as thousands of Soviet citizens were executed and buried in ditches there in the years 1936-38, the period of Soviet history known as the Terror.

Which is undoubtedly true. Indeed, it is part of the evidence that the Polish officers were executed in exactly the same way as their "predecessors" in the mass graves.

This will undoubtedly make President Medvedev's forthcoming visit to Poland a happier occasion.

The Wall Street Journal, in its article on the subject, adds an interesting and very moving tale.

Other than WikiLeaks, two notable events occurred over the weekend: Russia's parliament issued a resolution taking responsibility for Stalin's murder of 22,000 Polish officers in Katyn forest in 1940, and Dave Brubeck celebrated his 90th birthday in a set at the Blue Note jazz club in New York City. Permit us to connect the dots of history.

....

Toward the end of a long and very fine set Saturday evening at the Blue Note with his quartet, Mr. Brubeck, who turns 90 next week, took hold of the microphone aside his piano and began to talk about a remembrance of Poland. He said that President Eisenhower had sent the Dave Brubeck Quartet to Poland in 1958 to perform as representatives of the American people. Earlier in his career, Mr. Brubeck had represented the American people as a member of Patton's Third Army in Europe.

After a visit to Chopin's home and being surrounded by "all these pianos," Mr. Brubeck composed a Chopinesque jazz piece with the Polish name "Dziekuje." Mr. Brubeck asked if anyone in the Blue Note audience knew what "dzieuke" means. "It means 'thank you,'" a lady called out.

"That's right," said Mr. Brubeck. "It means thank you. And I want to play this piece as thanks to the people of Poland for resisting Soviet Communism."

One of the many things Hitler and Stalin had in common was their dislike for and distrust of jazz.

Show time

Glenn Miller's orchestra, the Nicholas brothers who were the best dancers in the movies according to Fred Astaire and the gorgeous Dorothy Dandridge. What could be better? Chattanooga-choo-choo from Sun Valley Serenade. Apparently, it has the great Norwegian skater Sonia Henie in it.

Not as well known as she should be

My father (who has not been mentioned on this blog before) owned a large collection of jazz LPs. The pride of those was a double album, called The 7 Ages of Jazz, a recording of a concert given 1958 and issued in 1959. Sadly, that particular album has disappeared in the various moves though many of the others are still in my possession.

The concert included many if not all of the greats around at the time (and was Billie Holliday's last recording) but one voice, until then unknown to me, has stood out in my memory, that of Maxine Sullivan, a great singer and not as well known as she should be. Here she is singing her signature tune, a jazz version of Loch Lomond:



This is the 1937 version as the 1955 has a disallowed embed. Darn!

It's show time

Just to prove that cats in this household are called after very great people, here are Mahalia Jackson and Dinah Shore singing Down by the riverside. Enjoy.

Happy Birthday to two of the greatest

A reader has alerted me to the fact that yesterday was Ella Fitzgerald's birthday and on Thursday it will be Duke Ellington's. There is only one thing for it - the two of them together peforming that wonderful number, It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

By popular demand

The one and only Count Basie, playing One O'Clock Jump in, I think, 1955 (there are several recordings). Enjoy.

Showtime: Mack the Knife

Let me start with an explanation: I was not brought up on the Bobby Darrin version (I don't like him, anyway) or the Armstrong or the Sinatra versions though I did hear them in my youth. No, I was brought up on the original, dark, sinister version, whether performed by Bertolt Brecht himself (not terribly well), Ernst Busch, the ballad singer in Pabst's film or sundry imitators. How that terrifying song managed to become jolly entertainment is fascinating and I wonder whether anybody has done a proper study of the transformation.

So, here are several versions. First off, Bert Brecht, the Communist propagandist, apparatchik, stool pigeon who betrayed various friends, lovers and comrades and the man, who wisely did not flee to the Soviet Union when the Nazis came to power, but to the Scandinavian countries and then the United States, returning to socialist East Germany only when it became obvious that he would be a great man there.



That is not a great performance but this is. Ernst Busch was an actor and a singer as well as a Communist agitator. It is as well to remember that the Communists did their very best to undermine the fragile Weimar Republic, aiding, though indirectly, the ascent of Hitler and the Nazis.

Busch did go to the Soviet Union together with many other German Communists but unlike those, he survived. In 1937 he went to Spain to fight in the International Brigade and survived the purge that the NKVD instituted among those. When Franco won Busch, interestingly enough, did not return to the Soviet Union. Perhaps, he knew what awaited him there.

He went to Belgium where he was interned by the Nazis after the invasion. Imprisoned in Belgium and France during the war he survived to move to East Germany to become yet another great man and fighter for freedom. Well, as long as the people did not demand freedom from the Communists as they did in Berlin in 1953. Neither Busch nor Brecht were in favour of the workers then.

Of course, there may have been other reasons for Busch's sojourn in Belgium and France. The NKVD was rather anxious to know about various ex-Communists and other left-wing activists who were in Nazi camps.



Well, enough already of this German gloom. Let us have some entertainment. Here is one of my favourite versions by Dinah Shore and Pearl Bailey, both wonderful singers and entertainers.