The idea that jazz is the music of freedom has been applied in a variety of ways over the decades.
Below Tasmanian-based pianist and composer Vicktor Zappner explains the connection in the Eastern European context in which he grew up.
He discusses the enormous influence of Voice of America jazz broadcaster Willis Conover, who not only presented an exciting form of music to rapt listeners behind the Iron Curtain, but in the act of doing so also suggested alternative ways of life.
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“Jazz started, I think, as an expression of freedom and expression of joy… Musically by its very nature, it is the most creative, the freest and the most democratic form of expression I know”. (Dave Brubeck)
In April 1998 Hobart guitarist Allan Brown made me aware of a short notice in the latest issue of the Jazz Times magazine. A Terry Ripmaster asked the readers to contact him with information for an intended biography of Willis Conover.
Allan remembered that I had previously written about this jazz broadcaster in one of our newsletters. I then sent a copy of my article to Terry, and as he was looking for a publisher I also sent him a letter of support for this project. Here is an excerpt:
While the love of jazz was the main reason for my fixation on the program, eventually it also motivated me into seriously studying the English language and, especially after 1968, served as a ray of hope and freedom after the country was occupied. People from outside of the Iron Curtain could not have possibly understood what Willis Conover, with his pleasant, deep voice, clear pronunciation, calm temperament and not one single word about politics, meant for us politically.
It was an oasis of sanity, normality and humanity…In a sharply divided world he brought people together to admire and celebrate music, which originated it the USA but gradually became universal without losing the connection with its roots.
On a more personal level, apart from food and sex, Willis’ program was the most consistent, regular and reliable source of pleasure for me in all those 23 years of listening. God rest his soul.
Terry Ripmaster’s planned biography of Willis Conover is a very timely project at a time when only 15 minutes of fame qualifies people for media attention and even autobiographies.
Terence Ripmaster is a retired professor of history, William Paterson University, a member of the International Association for Jazz Education, and a member of the Jazz Journalists Association. He now lives in Sarasota, Florida.
You might have never heard about Willis Conover, but neither did Terry Ripmaster until 1996. At that time he was the President of the New Jersey Jazz Society and had already written one jazz biography, Bucky Pizzarelli: A Life in Music. Their Jazz Society sponsored a jazz festival in Princeton where he, over food and wine, met Victor Dvoskin, a Russian bassist who had immigrated to the United States. When asked about what book would he write next, Terry sad he had not thought about it yet. The Russian urged him, “you must write a biography about Willis Conover!”
Listening to Willis Conover’s nightly Voice of America Jazz Hour became my serious obsession from 1956 until 1979. You might wonder, how come, that a man who was a hero and a real cult person to so many jazz musicians and jazz fans in the Soviet Union, its East European satellites and in many other parts of the world was virtually unknown in the USA.
Here is what Terry Ripmaster said about this puzzle: “A final word about the lack of interest by publishers has to do with the name Willis Conover. A Congressional restriction banning the Voice of America from broadcasting in the United States…rendered Conover relatively unknown except for jazz people. Countless times I was asked, ‘who is Willis Conover?’ It is exactly because he is unknown to most Americans, among other reasons, that his biography was written.”
The New York Times once estimated that Conover’s worldwide audience numbered around 100 million. The opening paragraphs of Times’ May 19, 1996 obituary nicely summarised what Willis Conover meant for those of us who were so allergic to totalitarianism. (The signature tune for his program was Billy Strayhorn’s Take the A Train played by Duke Ellington’s orchestra.)
“Willis Conover, the Voice of America disc jockey who fought the Cold War with cool music, capturing the hearts and liberating the spirits of listeners trapped behind the Iron Curtain, died on Friday at a hospital in Alexandria, Va. He was 75 and lived in Washington. Colleagues said the cause was lung cancer.
“In the long struggle between forces of Communism and democracy, Conover, who went on the air in 1955 and who continued broadcasting until a few months ago, proved more effective than a fleet of B-29s. No wonder. Six nights a week he would rev up the Strayhorn, put Ellington on the wing and take the A Train straight into the Communist heartland.
“As the appealing rumble of the familiar theme rolled over the airwaves, from East Berlin to Vladivostok, millions of people would fine-tune their radio dials, knowing what was coming next: a sugary, slow-talking baritone announcing, ‘This is Willis Conover in Washington, D.C., with the Voice of America Jazz Hour.’ For the next two hours Conover would bombard Budapest with Billy Taylor, strafe Poland with Oscar Peterson and drop John Coltrane on Moscow.”
On March 13 this year, ABC Classic FM broadcaster Margaret Throsby had clinical neuroscientist Peter Lantos on her morning program. As a child he survived the Holocaust while most of his family members perished. Later, in his native Hungary, he had to cope with another totalitarian system until he escaped to the UK after the 1956 uprising.
He specialised first in brain tumours and then in neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s. As usual, Margaret let him choose music to be played during the interview. He selected Kodaly, Verdi, Bach and Richard Strauss, but his fifth choice was Billy Strayhorn’s Take the A Train. When asked why that number, he said that it was a signature tune for Willis Conover’s Jazz Hour and it was like a ray of light and a symbol of freedom for him and many others in Hungary.
Robin Usher wrote an article about the forthcoming Melbourne Jazz Festival under the title Tuning into freedom of expression (The Age, 3 February, 2007).
It began: “Melbourne Jazz Festival Director Albert Dadon was surprised to get an email from a performer scheduled to play at the May event, asking if he could play whatever he wanted. ‘I replied that it was all up to him’ Dadon said. ‘Then he asked if he was free to speak about anything he wanted and I replied of course, because jazz is still a symbol of freedom’.
The inquiries came from pianist Kim Cheol Woong, now living in Seoul but who was trained and brought up in North Korea, where the favoured music is rousing martial anthems. He defected to the South Korean embassy on a visit to Beijing after being discovered playing jazz during practice with an orchestra in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and being forced to write a 10-page apology.”
Willis Conover: Broadcasting Jazz To The World by Terry Ripmaster is published by iuniverse and is available from Amazon.com for $US18.95.
