This blog has been inactive for a few months… Well, I have often lacked time to post something, or was sometimes just too lazy and prefered listening to my records rather than writing about them. I’m back now and will try to be more dilligent ! As the weather is getting cold here in Paris, …
Here is a record found in a box of 78s I bought in a flea market near my place a few months ago. “Aman Adanali” (Aman Adanalı in Turkish) is a well known anonymous folk song in Turkey, as evidenced by the numerous old and modern versions that can be found on Youtube. This one was performed by the singer …
I did my best but hardly found any information about this melancholic waltz from a Victor Japan record… With patience (and a very useful online dictionary), I managed to decipher the Japanese characters on the label. Here is what I discovered : The song is called “Cosmos Elegy” (コスモスの悲歌, Cosmos referring in that case to a …
The first part of this post focused on Leonid Utesov, who can be considered as the most popular Soviet singer of the 30′s. This second part introduces the pianist and composer Alexander Tsfasman (Александр Цфасман). Both of them are the most emblematic artists of The Golden Age of Soviet Jazz, which reached its peak in the mid …
I try to find 78 rpm records each time I visit a new place, but the lack of information makes it sometimes difficult, so I decided to create a list and a dynamic map of shops and markets worldwide. You can check it here. Continue reading »
You might remember that I posted a few weeks ago this unexpected Russian version of La Cucaracha and wrote about the funny way I managed to find some 78 rpm records in Armenia. Here are two other interesting recordings from the late 40′s… To be honest, I didn’t know anything about music of USSR before … Continue reading »
Even though Buenos-Aires is the birthplace of Tango, Paris played a major role in the history of this dance and musical style. To be more precise, Paris was one the place where Tango evolved from a controversial subculture to a popular and “respectable” artistic movement. Since its appearance in the second half of the 19th … Continue reading »
I bought this record a few days ago in a very nice place called “La Phonogalerie“, a huge shop devoted to phonographs and 78 rpm records located in the north of Paris, near Montmartre. I found a few Brazilian records there, mostly samba songs of the early 50′s. My favourite one, “Olha o côco Sinhá” … Continue reading »
I listen to this record quite often, but I only discovered recently that this song called Shina No Yoru (支那の夜, which means “China night”) had a special and controversial story. It was actually not so easy to find out who was its original performer, so that I had to make several researches to make this … Continue reading »
This track called “Oye, mes z’amis…” is a samba performed by Louis-Jean Alphonse, aka Aljean and Alphonso, and his orchestra. I didn’t find a lot of information about this musician, who was born in 1905 in Martinique, a French island in the Caribbean Sea. According to this short biography, Alphonso started playing the piano in … Continue reading »
Aktivista, who is the author of the blog Sa Starog Gramofona, asked me this morning (see his comment here) to post the other side of Ivo Robić’s record. Here it is ! This one is called “Tajna” and is much more jazzy than yesterday’s song Domino. Don’t hesitate to post comments if you have additional … Continue reading »
