Jazz in The USSR
In 1922, feeling alienated from most of the political emigrants from Russia, Parnakh returned to Russia, bringing jazz scores, saxophones, tam-tam's, and trumpet sordinos, and he soon founded the "First Eccentric Orchestra of the Russian Federated Socialist Republic - Valentin Parnakh's Jazz Band", which held its debut concert at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in Moscow on October 1, 1922. This New Orleans–style jazz band became popular and influential among the artists of the Russian avant-garde of those days.
Parnakh was also creative director for music and choreography at Vsevolod Meyerhold's Meyerhold Theater, where his Eccentric Orchestra performed hits of the time, such as Kitten on the Keyboards and the ballet suite The Bull on the Roof. Parnokh greatly influenced Meyerhold's "Biomechanics" acting method, and his band appeared in the 1924 play Trest D.E. (directed by Meyerhold and based on Ilya Ehrenburg's 1923 novel Trust D.E.).
On May 1, 1923, Parnokh's band performed before members the Comintern participating in the Agricultural Expo. The Soviet press of the time wrote: "For the first time jazz music was performed at an official state function, something which has never happened in the West".
Parnokh also published numerous articles on the contemporary music culture of the West and was the first to promote the work of Charlie Chaplin and the first to introduce French Dadaist poetry into the Soviet Union. In 1925, he published a book of poems, Introduction To Dance (which included a portrait of Parnokh by Picasso).
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Famous quotes containing the word jazz:
“Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children’s party taken over by the elders.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)