Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union

by S. Frederick Starr

“...that rare thing, a piece of careful scholarship that is also superby entertaining...Starr, who is president of Oberlin College and has been associated with the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, is also a professional jazz musician, and his knowledgeable affection for the music shines through the text.” – Andrea Lee, New York Times Book Review

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction, Jazz, Russia

390 pages

First published May 5, 1983

About the author

Stephen Frederick Starr (born March 24, 1940) is an American expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs, a musician, and a former college president, having served as President of Oberlin College for 11 years.

Reviews

[Nafeesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

a reread of a book I wrote a paper on in university. it's even better the second time.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blue notes for a Red revolution. Starr, a friend of a friend of mine who also played and studied jazz, had a great idea here: why not chart the course of Soviet domestic and foreign policy by tracing the ups and downs of jazz, an American import, in the Soviet Union? The Communists had to weigh their desire to be seen, abroad and at home, as friendly towards an African-American art form with their distaste for "Western decadence." This conundrum produced unsteady and at times humorous results. Even under Stalin, the Soviets had to pay some homage to jazz while at other times the music got banned lest it corrupt Russian youth. (Just like back in the USA.) Published years before the USSR fell apart this book still excites and enlightens.

[Fernando Pestana da Costa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a remarkable fact that the year of 1917 was unusually rich in events that left an indelible mark in our recent history. Of these, two are the subject matter of this book: Jazz, my favorite kind of music, was first put on record in a 78 rpm disc by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded in New York City in the 26th of February. Two weeks later, on the other side of the Atlantic, and at the far end of a war torn continent, an unorganized protest against bread shortages in Petrograd (St. Petersburgh) resulted in the overthrown of the Romanov dynasty in Russia and quickly grew into a full-blown Revolution resulting in what was arguably the most important and influential single event in the 20th Century: the Bolshevik coup, better known to history as the October Revolution. It is the history of the interrelation between Jazz music, its practitioners and fans, on one side, and the regime that came to power following October, on the other, that is the subject of this book. And what a fascinating and convoluted history it is! Due to World War I, the 1917 Revolutions, the Civil War and foreign intervention, jazz arrived in Russia rather late when compared with West European countries: from 1917 several American groups (both civilian and military) toured England, Belgium, France, but jazz did not reach Russia until 1922, and even then introduced by a Russian jazz fan: the Futurist poet, Dadaist, dancer, editor, and temporary exile in Paris, Valentim Parnakh. The way jazz thrived under communist Russia was not independent of the general political climate affecting the arts and other intellectual activities, but was also dependent upon local patronage by party bosses that happened to be, or not, jazz fans. Also, along the years, one gets conflicting doctrines about jazz as a "decadent capitalist music" or as a music of America's "black proletarians". Both sides of the ideological debate could turn out to be rather pathetic: not only the staunch jazz bashers of the Association of Proletarian Musicians, and the intelectual éeminence grise of the regime, Maxim Gorky, but also those defending jazz as a proletarian music, could engage in endless literary polemics about the music without really listening much to the real thing (certainly this was the case of the jazz apologist Marietta Shaginian that brilliantly expounded the proletarian origins of jazz, and defended the music, but was almost completely deaf...) So, the fine line separating (?!) authentic "proletarian jazz" from its "bourgeois corruption" became, not so strangely, the gray zone where fans and musicians could negotiate the political limits of their art, and, considering the fact that jazz (swing) became a rather popular dance music by the 1930's and 1940's, it really allowed for a big expansion of the music during most of Stalin's era. The tragic part of the story is that in the increasingly autocratic regime following the NEP years, polemics about abstract concepts like music rarely kept at a literary level, and so, at some points, notably during the Great Purges of the late thirties, and at the very end of Stalin's life, after the end of the War, the general repressive climate in the USSR had consequences to jazz that were no different than those in the rest of Soviet society. What is really interesting is that, on occasions, and notably during the War years, a huge number of Russian jazz orchestras were in existence, some semi-independent, others under the patronage of Federal, State, or Local governments, or the Armed Forces. Some of these orchestras were directed by first rate conductors and musicians that achieved notoriety in the Soviet Union and even abroad, like Alexander Tsfasman, Alexander Varlamov, Leonid Utesov, and the amazing case of the head of the State Jazz Orchestra of the Belorussian Republic, the German-Jewish exile Eddie Rosner (the "white Louis Armstrong"), one of the most successful jazzmen of the USSR. In the case of these four famous jazzmen, the paucity of commercial recordings currently available to jazz fans (at least outside Russia) is compensated by the existence of an excellent website containing a large amount of Real Audio files and other useful information. However, for an indepth analysis of Jazz in the Soviet Union in all its phases down to the end of the seventies, this book remains the main work available in English, and the author's lively style, at times funny, in other occasions bitter, always results in an enlightened narrative.

[Nichol · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great Book!! I strongly believe that this should be a Jazz History course both for Russians and Americans (if not already out there). Even though the Russians were at least a decade behind in jazz, it would be great to hear what they were playing and compare it to where the Americans were at the same time. Also, it would be awesome to hear how each country progressed with a side by side comparison on similar style...the Russians had to add the Balalaika to keep the Party happy, not very popular but still it would be great to hear the evolution. I am sure that for a class or preservation of history those hard to find recordings may come available somehow, you never know.
I found a quote that I felt really tied together the whole feeling behind this book and the musicians desperate to get something they weren't allowed to have.

"Those wishing access to Western jazz had to make an effort to hear it. They could not relegate it to background music or otherwise take it for granted. Their engagement with jazz had the intensity of religious belief within the underground church. Without this intensity, modern jazz would never have developed with such impressive rapidity in the USSR".

 I will definetly be reading up on Schillinger. That he left the Soviet Union only so he could pursue Jazz in the USA and that he influenced many American jazz artists such as Benny Goodman, Quincy Jones, Glenn Miller...Gershwin. You know that He and Goodman had to have many talks about life back in the USSR for Goodman to constantly write and bug the consulate for years just to tour in the USSR.

There is just so much in this book, if you are remotely interested in jazz or jazz history...just read it!

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should have read this book when it first came out in the mid-Eighties. It was a real groundbreaker, perhaps the first book to talk about the "stiliagi" movement among post-World War II Soviet youths and would have given an inkling of the coming Gorbachev generation.

Basically, "Red and Hot" felt like two books. The first, which ran from the 1917 Revolution to Stalin's death, was a history that showed how the Soviet state responded to jazz. This was interesting. Who expects an American book from the 80s in which Kliment Voroshilov is a good guy (a great dancer and pro-jazz) and Bukharin is a bad guy (anti-jazz)? It seemed to me that the Soviet attitude toward jazz was shaped to a large degree by foreign policy. Since Nazi Germany banned jazz, the USSR tolerated jazz, but when the United States became the chief foreign "other," jazz fell out of favor.

(I loved the Soviet jazz musician who kept performing during the anti-jazz era by prefacing his concerts with "Jazz is a very bad and anti-Soviet form of music. This performance will teach you how to recognize jazz.")

However, after Stalin's death, "Red and Hot" changes into a different kind of book, an almost obsessive cataloging of Soviet jazz musicians of each decade. Different styles of jazz were described as well, and at times I felt that I needed someone to translate the jazz into English for me.

For readers as outside the jazz scene as I am but still interested in Soviet history, Richard Stites' "Russian Popular Culture" is probably a better bet.

[Steven Spector · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written as a metaphor for Soviet/Russian history 1917-1980. What's "acceptable" today? Is it the same thing that was "acceptable" yesterday? And what of tomorrow? Very detailed with a bit too much judgment on what does or doesn't sound good. Could I hear it for myself please? Oh shoot I can't. The recordings are just too rare to find. Oh well.