Orange-yellow, at least in my childhood, is a happy, sunny color.
I think at the very end of the 1960s they peeped it from the almighty RCA - for a decade, no less, releasing vinyl with bright orange cores.
Czechoslovakia was more modest than the United States, but here, as in the USSR, the principle of "culture for the people" worked - vinyl with the Supraрhon brand was produced on a grand scale and sold well in the Warsaw bloc, and throughout the world.
The Czechs, then firmly inseparable from the Slovaks, knew their business - a huge catalog of classical music, a theater at the microphone and a very sensible stage.
Especially jazz.
There is so much absurd talk about the fact that the Reds didn’t have that, and that didn’t exist either.
And then, let me ask you, how did I know Dixieland from the age of four, although I only have to remember lines to the moon and sugar stamps?
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, filmed by Govorukhin, appeared much later, in 1981.
I was 12 then, and I knew quite firmly: in the film, the unfortunate and utterly oppressed blacks do not play Dixieland at all - rather, something that precedes it, and much long ago, and in the original processing.
Where does such knowledge come from?
Alberts Blues - Albert Nicholas and The Traditional Jazz Studio.
Year of publication - 1972, Prague.
Believe me, I have never heard anything more classical in the spirit and rhythms of Dixieland in my life.
You can doubt, see the secret meanings and some incompetence of the author - but it's all empty.
You do not see the hidden mechanisms, and they are the whole secret.
Who is, in fact, Albert Nicholas and how did he end up in Prague?
Nicholas was born in New Orleans on May 27, 1900.
All his life, literally from the age of 15, he played the clarinet.
He played Dixieland jazz, the most real, root.
With many greats of that time, in different orchestras.
Until his death in September 1973, this is 58 years of a musical career.
Music was dissolved in his blood, in the air of his lungs, just as he himself was dissolved in it, consisted of it.
Albert Nicholas is a Dixieland craftsman of the highest standard.
Back in 1953, he moved to France (he liked it there) and in his later years he visited the States extremely rarely and only for the sake of recording sessions.
His tour in Prague took place in April 1972, and at the same time the album mentioned above was recorded in the Prague MOZARTEUM studio Supraphon.
The orchestra accompanying Albert Nicholas on that recording in the studio is the Czechoslovak Dixieland The Traditional Jazz Studio, conducted by Pavel Smetacek, an exceptionally academic clarinet and saxophonist (he is the son of the famous conductor Vaclav Smetacek, who staged Boris Godunov at the luxurious Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires) Mussorgsky).
There are nine unimaginably luxurious standards on the disc, for example: Royal Garden Blues, Basin Street Blues, Rose Roum and Nicholas's calling card by Albert's Blues.
What am I talking about?
About the highest quality of the material and the extremely reverent attitude of the Czechoslovakian Supraphon to stars of conditionally second magnitude.
Well, of course, everything is so arranged in our life - everyone knows Louis Armstrong and his atomic hits with intricate growls and passages on the pipe.
And the musicians of his ensemble?
That's what I'm talking about.
By the way, Pavel Smetachek and his The Traditional Jazz Studio have been recording albums with the masters of the great jazz era for many years in a row, each time getting into the right top ten, because they relied on exemplary mastery.
These albums, the albums of that series, I love incredibly.
It was through them that I taught my ears to perceive and accept the live sound of a record, the musical polyphony of many instruments.
And I also learned (later there was something to compare with) how good vinyl can be - Supraphon family albums are alive and sound to this day, although it’s even scary to imagine how many times the player’s needle ran through them from cover to cover.
The Supraphon of that time was distinguished by a clean, direct sound, the master standard of studio sound - without "porridge", "barrel" and other delights.
Now you understand what was happening in my five-year-old little head when Albert Nicholas was taken out of the envelope by his parents and turned himself on (through the speakers, of course) to the fullest - what is Tom Sawyer, what are you talking about! ..
The second album that always ecstatically delighted me was Blue Waters - Benny Waters and The Traditional Jazz Studio.
Year of publication - 1976. Prague.
By the time this disc appeared in the family record library, I had turned seven.
I could afford a lot: jumping on the sofa and chairs not for five minutes, but all 25, hooting and making wild faces (it seemed to me then that I sing very well and confidently hold my stage image).
Benny Waters' vocals on Zigin & Zagin and Lady Be Good blew me away.
It was as if the tsar of the sea himself had come to the line for saury with herrings at Gastronome No. 1, starting a confident and uncompromising skirmish with the saleswomen - they would not have been able to insert a word and were deafly silent in full accordance with what was offered from the counter assortment.
And who is this fantastic Benny Waters?
American jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.
Born in Baltimore on January 23, 1902.
From the age of 14 he played the organ, but the saxophone took its toll.
Watters even graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a degree in brass.
Until 1951, he played with the greats of that era, in particular with the orchestra of Jimmy Lunsford.
For some time he traveled around the States with his group.
In 1952, he took it and left for France (it pulls jazzmen there).
He lived in Paris and performed until his 95th birthday.
And he died in August 1998.
Two years before his death, he became a Chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor - recognition of merit from the French Ministry of Culture.
What can I say - 80 years of career.
Probably, this is when everything around you is music.
And there is nothing outside of it... Legend.
How many of us have heard of Benny Watters?
Here I am again about that.
Listening to the record, you will find a truly outstanding piece by Pavel Smetacek - The Not Knowing Lover - and two armor-piercing hits written by Benny Waters: Blop Blop and Blue Waters.
Maestro Waters himself on this album (recorded during his Prague tour in January 1976 at the Supraphon studio with The Traditional Jazz Studio Dixieland) plays clarinet, soprano, alto and tenor saxophone.
And he sings more.
As it was said - inimitable and magical.
I told you about two wonderful musicians, about two wonderful albums and about one record company worthy in all respects - it still exists.
The truth is, Czechoslovakia has disappeared somewhere from the map of Europe ...
I strongly recommend that you find and buy records at the breakups or in vinyl stores - they will decorate your home collection.
Choose carefully, circulations were then decent - your flawless copy will find you.
Listen to jazz.
In it, they say, there are no shores.
But the light of the beacon is always visible.
Good night to you.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.