Foxtrot from Warsaw: Mieczysław Fogg - Czarny Jim, 1939

Mieczysław Fogg, Orkiestra Tan. Syrena Rekord pod dyr. Ivo Wesby'ego - Czarny Jim (Bawełnę zbiera...)(That Black Jim, Who Picks The Cotton)(muz. Henryk Wars - sł. Andrzej Włast), Syrena-Electro 1939
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This song was recorded in Syrena-Electro studies in Warsaw, in the end of September 1939: just a few days before onset of the Great Apocalypse of the Mankind - which forever swept off 3 millions of European Jews, the whole of the city of Warsaw, the half of Europe - together with all her cabarets, cafes and bars, where people like Bertolt Brecht put on the napkins the first stanzas of their poems, and composers like Henryk Wars wrote on the table plates first notes of their newest foxtrotts.

This song - with the text, written 80 years ago by Andrzej Włast (-who was soon to become one of the half of million of Warsaw Holocaust victims) - is, by no means, purely non-PC!!! And whoever wants today to approach this naive and lovely story from the "pro or anti" "racsist or non-racsist" point - in the PC manner - is, in one way, right, in the other - stupid.

The text just says about a black boy, Jim, who picks up cotton somewhere in the Mississippi lands, dreaming of "the white lady he once saw on a silver screen".

This song was written by two Polish Jews: Henryk Wars (music) and Andrzej Włast (lyrics). One of them survived the Holocaust (Wars), the other one - died. They both wrote the hit they considered modern and happy for Poles of 1939 - both, as the composition (- influenced by George Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue") as in lyrics, which equally seem to be strongly referred to the popular "white culture" American idiom of late 1930s.
Poland was no exception - Polish (as well as European...) image of America, was then very strongly created by Hollywood film industry of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers era - to live long afterwards, thru WWII and deep into the Communist times.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Przedwojenna
• Polska
• międzywojenna
• Warszawa
• kabaret
• Morskie
• Oko
• Andrzej
• Włast
• Henryk
• Wars
• stare
• piosenki

[7511christian]

Superb music. Many thanks to you.

[kspm01]

Another fabulous Fogg recording; thank you for sharing, as well as a few more of splendid pre-war Warsaw.

[WaligoraMagdalena]

Trafiła we mnie też :) Pozdrawiam!

[WaligoraMagdalena]

Masz kawiarnię z takim klimatem? gdzie?  :)

[bigred997]

Very educational- if you watch the movie "Holiday Inn" starring Bing Crosby made in 1941-42, there is a musical number called "Abraham", which uses the same melodic undertone of Jewish European half-steps. I always thought that the composers for the film had to have a Hebraic background. Now, I know.

Also, this same music played as a background theme throughout the transitional scenes in "The Cotton Club" starring Richard Gere in the 80's.

[jozefsterkens]

I never play german records dating after 1932. They give me a bad taste in my mouth. The austrians were even worse then the germans wat antisemitisme is concerned. All those Zarah Leander or Marika Rökk fans give me goose skin. I've uploaded some from a historical point of view but to think that an or other SS played Zarah records through the loudspeakers of Ausschwitz is to much for me.

my mother always forbid me to play those records.