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Willis Conover and Louis
Armstrong
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The United Nations has proclaimed April 20, 2012, as "International Jazz Day"
in recognition of "jazz as force of social transformaton." UNESCO
Director General, Irina Bokova, said "From its roots in slavery, this
music has raised a passionate voice against all forms of oppression. It
speaks a language of freedom that is meaningful to all cultures."
America's international short-wave broadcast services, the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty had significant music programs during the Cold War.
In 2009, the U. S. Congress proclaimed April 25th "Willis Conover Day" to honor a Voice of America (VOA) broadcaster who spread American jazz music around the world during the Cold War. He began broadcasting over VOA in 1955. Conover called jazz "the music of freedom."
A new 13-minute podcast about Willis Conover and Jazz music broadcast over VOA was posted on The Jazz at Lincoln Center website. It is listed as "preview" but it is a full program. The podcast description reads:
America's international short-wave broadcast services, the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty had significant music programs during the Cold War.
In 2009, the U. S. Congress proclaimed April 25th "Willis Conover Day" to honor a Voice of America (VOA) broadcaster who spread American jazz music around the world during the Cold War. He began broadcasting over VOA in 1955. Conover called jazz "the music of freedom."
A new 13-minute podcast about Willis Conover and Jazz music broadcast over VOA was posted on The Jazz at Lincoln Center website. It is listed as "preview" but it is a full program. The podcast description reads:
During
the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the United States had a secret
weapon: Willis Conover's "Jazz Hour," carried on the shortwave radio
signals of The Voice of America across Russia and Eastern Europe:.
Starting in 1955 and running for over forty years, 'Jazz Hour' nurtured
generations of jazz musicians who grew up under the restrictions of
Communism. On this edition of Jazz Stories we hear Willis Conover and
two outstanding jazz musicians, Czech bassist George Mraz and Russian
trumpeter Valery Ponomarev – both of whom learned about jazz from his
broadcasts.
No disc jockey of Radio Free Europe or Radio Liberty gained
the legendary status of Willis Conover, who daily hosted the music
program “Jazz Hour“ for the Voice of America (VOA). That
is not without trying of RFE and RL but for the jamming of the
frequencies of both RFE and RL throughout most of the Cold War. That
being said, both RFE and RL had popular music programs including jazz.
We
will take a brief look at how jazz not only overcame jamming to reach
listerners eager for western music, but also acted as a rallying tool to
get Americans to back the Crusade for Freedom and RFE.
Here
is an example of jamming, taken from the Crusade for Freedom film
"Towers of Truth" narrated by famed television journalist Walter
Cronkite:
Countering Jazz with Jazz
According to Alan Michie's authoritative book on the early years of RFE, jazz was used as a weapon by both sides of the Iron Curtain:
According to Alan Michie's authoritative book on the early years of RFE, jazz was used as a weapon by both sides of the Iron Curtain:
RFE
in its early years contributed its quota of forbidden jazz in daily
programs beamed to the younger listeners, although some of the exile
broadcasters, brought up on mazurkas, polkas and waltzes, were inclined
to doubt the assurances of their American advisers that jazz music would
prove as infectious behind the Iron Curtain as it had been all around
the world. But after Stalin's passing in 1953 the Communist regimes
grudgingly lifted their taboo and their radio stations cautiously
ventured to play whatever jazz records they had on file, mostly music of
the 1920s and 1930s. By 1956, however, the appetite for jazz was so
accepted that the regime radios boldly introduced hit tunes from the
West. Radio Warsaw smartly had its records flown in from New York.
To
counter this competition, RFE sharpened its own programs, and put on
recognized Western jazz experts to provide the know-how that the
Communists could not match. Simon Copans, an American authority who had
lived many years in France and who conducted a jazz program on France's
Radio Diffusion Francaise, was borrowed from that network to prepare a
weekly record session, which in turn was translated and made available
for broadcast by all of RFE's Voices. John Wilson's program, "The World
of Jazz," broadcast regularly over New York City's WQXR radio station,
was made available for rebroadcast over RFE, as were special jazz
programs contributed by New York's radio station WNEW.
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| Simon Copans (L.) |
He created an international jazz festival in 1976 in Souillac, France, that continues today. Sim Copans died in 2000 and remains a "legend" in France for his promotion of Jazz and American Gospel music.
May 30, 2012 was the 100th anniversary of Sim Copan's birth. In Souillac, France, from July 12-22, 2012, there will be an exhibition in celebration, concurrent with this year's international jazz Festival (Festival de Jazz "Sim Copan" de Souillac). In addition there was a five-day program of events in his honour in the Vallee de la Dordogne lotoise (Dordogne Valley) from June 5-9, 2012.
The Billboard magazine
in 1958 proudly proclaimed itself in its sixty-fourth year to be “The
Amusement Industry’s Leading Newsweekly.” The March 3, 1958, issue had a
full-page article entitled “A Report to the Music Industry” that dealt
with Radio Free Europe and the Crusade for Freedom A photograph of the
Munich RFE headquarters and a graphic of the RFE transmitter sites and
how programs were broadcast from Germany and Portugal to East
Europe. The article focused on music: “The youth in these countries
want to know about and hear the latest American pop, dance and jazz
records. And music of all kinds comprises some 15% of broadcast time to
each country behind the Iron Curtain.”
For
the 1959 campaign, the Advertising Council also sent out a two-record
set to radio stations: one was entitled “But not for me—Freedom is not
free” that contained brief personal appeals in support Radio Free
Europe, from musicians and entertainers, Duke Ellington, Arthur Godfrey,
Hy Gardner, Judy Holliday, Robert Preston and Dorothy Collins. It was
distributed with a second record “This Guitar Chose Freedom” that told
the story of Hungarian jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo and his escape to
freedom in 1956. Television personality Steve Allen was the speaker and
Szabo is heard on the record playing songs “I remember you,” ‘Berklee’s
Delight,” “You go to my head” and “Chinatown my Chinatown.” The theme of
the recording was “How American jazz – stifled behind the Iron Curtain –
sounds in a free land.”
In the late 1950s, jazz great Louis Armstrong visited Radio Liberty’s New York studio. He
agreed to an interview and introduced the program in carefully
rehearsed Russian. He then played his trumpet to the accompaniment of a
popular Soviet song "Five Minutes." Louis Armstrong also once was
interviewed by Radio Free Europe.
Below is a composite of his Russian language program introduction and photograph of Louis Armstrong before the RFE microphone.
The Benny Goodman band
toured the USSR in 1962. Goodman became the first jazz musician to tour
the Soviet Union for the State Department, when he made thirty
appearances in six cities in five weeks. Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev attended the band’s opening night in Moscow. Goodman opened
the show with "Let’s Dance" and "Greetings Moscow," a number based on a
Russian folk song. Khrushchev later sent Goodman a note reporting that
he had been “very pleased and delighted to be at the concert.”
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Goodman in Moscow
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Goodman gave an impromptu solo clarinet performance in Red Square. The New York Times noted that he became a visiting “Pied Piper” for curious children who swarmed around him in the shadow of the Kremlin.
Since
Russian officials had banned the American musicians from fraternizing
with ordinary citizens, reportedly band members Phil Woods and Zoot Sims
made contact with jazz fans, who called out to them from behind trees
and bushes as they walked through Moscow parks.
Original
compositions of "Soviet" jazz musicians were "smuggled" out of the
USSR by members of the Goodman band, who had surreptitiously met with
the local musicians. In June 1963, Radio Liberty introduced a new weekly
half-hour program produced in New York that was called This is Jazz (eto dzhaz).
The
first broadcast was that of eight musicians who played the smuggled
jazz compositions: Bill Crow, bass, and alto saxophonist Phil Woods,
tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, pianist John Bunch, trumpeter Art Farmer
(using mostly the fluegelhorn) trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, baritone
saxophonist Nick Brignola and drummer Walter Perkins.
The jazz session broadcast was recorded but not released. A CD entitled The Liberty of Jazz with nine of the songs was recently reproduced by SoLyd Records in a limited edition. The CD jacket includes a photograph of the Radio’s transmitter site in Spain and the famous jazz performers. The
songs can be previewed for purchase, including the Louis Armstrong
recording of "Five Minutes," at numerous internet sites including Amazon
and iTunes.
For
more photographs of music personalities before RFE's microphones,
visit the RFE/RL Collection, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/slide-shows/28470
