[Dixielandjazz] Kenny Ball & his Jazzmen

[Dick Baker]

Kenny Ball made me a jazz fan!

I was a dumb-ass high school kid (a redundant formulation, I fear--is 
there any other kind?) when his "Midnight in Moscow" elbowed its way 
into the top-40 AM radio stations and thus into my consciousness.  I 
liked it so much that I dashed out and bought the "Midnight in 
Moscow" LP as well as another he released in 1962, "It's Trad."  I 
loved them, but didn't have a chance to follow up because I soon was 
off to the Air Force and then to college.  The first dixieland music 
I ever heard live was in Leningrad in 1970, where I was a student at 
Leningrad State (good ol' LSU).  I saw that the Leningrade Dixieland 
Jazz Band was playing at the Estrada Teatr, so off I went--where I 
was amazed to find that they sounded just like Kenny Ball!

Many years later, after many more trips to the Soviet Union and 
acquaintanceships with Soviet jazzmen, I learned that for all 
practical purposes, dixieland jazz was introduced to the Soviet Union 
by Kenny Ball on his trips there in the late '50s and early 
'60s.  The Leningrad band sprouted from that seed, as did a couple of 
bands in Moscow.


>From: Gluetje1 at aol.com
>
>Found this on my Facebook page along with a quip that England sent the
>Beatles over here and kept the good stuff for themselves.
>
>_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aoD5XB2eEc&feature=share_
>(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aoD5XB2eEc&feature=share)
>
>Ginny



--
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      Dick Baker
  djml at dickbaker.org