1930s-40s Soviet Jazz: Alexander Tsfasman- Phantom Dancer

Alexander Tsfasman was a barber who played violin by ear.

Alexander, mirroring his father, started playing the violin at the age of seven, but soon was carried away playing the piano.

At age 13, he won the first prize at the Regional completion in Nizhny Novgorod for his performance of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 11 in A Minor by Franz Liszt.

In 1918, Tsfasman entered the piano department of the Music College in Nizhny Novgorod.

From 1920 to 1923, he served as a pianist and percussionist in the symphony orchestra in Nizhny Novgorod.

In 1923, the future composer moved to Moscow and entered the piano class of Felix Blumenfeld in Moscow Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1930.

A career of a concert pianist with challenging works of Russian and world classics attracted him. During his studies, the young man began composing music and was introduced to jazz.

Video clip: From Tsfasman’s Jazz Suite in four movements, the first movement, ‘Snowflakes’…

Frank Withers’ “Jazz Kings” sextet with Sidney Bechet performed in Moscow in 1926. Alexander was fascinated by the rhythms of jazz, its unusual sound, and many opportunities for experiments in the sphere not yet known to Soviet musicians.

In the spring of 1927, a new octet, “AMA Jazz”, led by 20-year-old Tsfasman on piano, gave a concert at the Artistic Club in the capital. “AMA” stood for Association of Moscow Authors.

In 1928, the “AMA-jazz” broadcast over the radio — the first time Soviet jazz was heard on air.

At the same time, the orchestra of Tsfasman recorded the first domestic jazz record in the studio on Kuznetsky Most. He recorded “Hallelujah” by Vincent Youmans sounded and “Seminole” by Harry Warren.

Tsfasman lived through the years of the New Economic Policy (NEP).

Western dances, close in rhythm to authentic jazz, were in vogue.

Early in his career, Tsfasman was already composing jazz, ragtime and instrumental blues. Unlike the earlier Valentin Parnakh jazz band which mainly played on the eccentricities of the new “noise” genre, the ensemble of Tsfasman was exclusively musical and was built up with trained musicians.

Video clip: Tsfasman on Soviet TV in the 1960s…

Along with American jazz standards, the repertoire of Tsfasman’s orchestra repertoire included many of his own compositions: “Jimmy”, “Happy Rain”, “Happy Day”, “Expectation”, and “Unlucky Date” (below) .

Alexander touring the Soviet Union regularly from 1933.

From 1939 to 1946, Tsfasman headed the jazz orchestra of the All-Union Radio Committee.

During the Second World War, Tsfasman learned to play the accordion in a month, and with his brigade gave more than 90 concerts for the front line troops.

In 1944, Tsfasman composed one of his best works, the “Intermezzo for Clarinet and Orchestra”. He sent the sheet music to Benny Goodman, to whom the piece is dedicated. Goodman performed it many times to enormous success.

In the same time, Alexander received sheet music for Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and performed it in 1945 at the Hall of Columns with the Symphony Orchestra.

After last years of Stalin and his moronic “fight against cosmopolitanism” was a dark period for jazz orchestras. Performances were cancelled, the orchestras themselves were renamed “pop”, and Western repertoire was banned.

Tsfasman worked in the Hermitage Garden, assembling a new small instrumental ensemble for new tours and new recordings.

“The Khrushchev Thaw” in the country a few years later began a “second wind” for Tsfasman.

He wrote new instrumental pieces and songs, made records, and composed soundtracks for cartoons and the feature films: “Merry Stars” (1954), “The Secret of Beauty” (1955) and “Behind the Shop Window” (1956).

In the last years of life he lived a rural lifestyle, playing tennis and growing roses.

Read a 24 page bio of Alexander Tsfasman with many audio clips here https://www.retroportal.ru/aleksandr_tsfasman/kniga_01.html

Video clip: Tsfasman song ‘Unlucky Date’ used in two Soviet films and played by the band, ‘Melodia’, in 1976