Jazz in Moscow

Since the Soviet Government lists jazz music as "vulgar," "demoralizing," few good Communists have heard jazz orchestras. But tourists in Moscow may hear jazz at the tourist hotels. One of the best is at the Grand Hotel where Leader Alexander ("Sasha") Tsfasman, "Russia's Paul Whiteman," postures, stamps and waves his baton. His "Moscow Boys" blare out an acceptable version of jazz. Few Communists go to hear it.

One midnight last week "Russia's Paul

Whiteman" and his Moscow Boys were summoned to a meeting of the Moscow Workers Theatre Club. They were the case for the negative in a debate: "Is jazz too bourgeois for proletarian Russia?" In the close, airless clubroom the Moscow Boys took up their instruments and played jazz as they had never played before. They played a waltz, then several French and English foxtrots. The young workers, most of whom were hearing jazz for the first time, were exhilarated but confused. Then Tsfasman called for "Ho Hum," popular three years ago in the U. S. When it was finished the audience cried for an encore. Jazzman Tsfasman had all but won his case. He ended with a rumba.

In the debate afterwards one Comrade Glava, representative of the Youth L e a g u e's newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravada, suggested that young workers who could not "resist the appeal of the bourgeois dance" confine their depravity to their homes. Finally the Moscow Conservatory's Music Professor Konnus pulled a long face and gravely approved Tsfasman's jazz.

Alexander Tsfasman stands for jazz in Russia. Some of his compositions: "Jolly Blues." "Sky Trot/' "Willy Brest."

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