[ Andre Popp Orch. ]
Popp is another of the 'Easy Listening" era musicians whose career includes compostion, arranging and band-leading. Born in France, Popp is a composer and orchestra leader who was most active during the 1950's and 1960's on the French radio system. Several of his 'Easy Listening' albums utilized music in combination with tape loops and sound effects. His album 'Delirium' is a prime example of this technique.

Some of his compositions have become 'light music' classics. Perhaps the best known composition is "The Portuguese Washerwoman", by Andre Popp, Roger Lucchesi, and Charles Tobias. The 'hit' release of this tune was recorded by the American pianist Joe 'Fingers' Carr (Lou Busch) who gave it a "barrel-house piano" arrangement.

      [ Jerzy Petersburski Orch. ]
b. April 20, 1897, Warsaw, Poland, d. October 7, 1979, Warsaw, Poland
aka: Jerzy Melodysta ( He was born into the well known Warsaw 'klezmer' family Melodysta); George Petersburski
The Tango appeared in Poland (and in all Europe) at just about the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. It was the habit of wealthy Argentine families to send their sons and daughters to Europe, especially to France, during vacations. And, these young people introduced their 'scandalous' Tango to their European friends. The first performers were mostly vaudeville dance acts.

Just before World War I, on October 28th 1913, patrons of a Warsaw theatre sat and watched the team of Lucyna Messal and Jozef Redo performing that new dance called the "Tango". That same year, patrons of the Warsaw theatres could also see Edward Kuryllo and his 17 year old dancing partner, Pola Negri, dancing the Tango. (25 years later, Pola Negri was singing "Tango Notturno", the title song of one of her last sound pictures ( a German produced film. In his diary's Dec. 14, 1937 entry -one week before 'Tango Notturno' went into release- the German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, wrote "Pola Negri swallows too much money".) Negri, (b. December 31, ca.1894, in either Janowa or Lipno, Poland, d. August 1, 1987, San Antonio, Texas, USA. (pneumonia). née: Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec.) was a Polish film actress who achieved notoriety as a 'femme fatale' in silent films between the 1910's and 1930's. It was often said that she was "born in Poland, made in Germany, stolen by Hollywood". During her life, she was a lover of Rod La Roque, and was engaged to Charles Chaplin, both before he met and married Paulette Goddard, and before she met and seduced Rudolph Valentino. Negri was Adolf Hitler's favorite actress and even his lover for a short while, despite the fact that she was part Gypsy. It is interesting to note that during the 1930s Pola only worked, but never lived, in Germany. She preferred living and spending her free time in France. She was twice (legally) married, once to Count Eugene Dambski (1919 - 1921 -divorced), and to Prince Serge Mdivani (14 May 1927 - 2 April 1931 -divorced). She later became a high-grossing Nazi film star who would not bow to the idol of fascism. The post-WWI years were a time when the Tango began spreading throughout Europe. In 1919, Karol Hanusz in the cabaret "Black Cat" performed his interpretation of "The Last Tango" (music: E. Deloire) with Polish lyrics that started with the line "Under the blue sky of Argentina.....". Two years later, Stanislaw Ratold recorded (at the Beka Grand Record company) a Polish version of "Tango du Rêve", with music by Eduard Malderen.

However, until the mid-1920s, the tango in Poland (and in all Europe) only shared position with the then very fashionable American dance rhythms including the Toddle, the one-step, the shimmy, and the fox-trot. Then, in the mid-1920s, a real Tango "craze" spread over Europe, - no- all over the world.

Petersburski studied piano and composition at Warsaw's Conservatory, and later studied conducting in Vienna, Austria, and also with famed operetta composer Emmerich Kalman, who convinced the young composer to give up "serious" music and compose "popular" songs. Between the two world wars (I and II), this Polish (Jewish) composer, was one of the major figures in Warsaw's Popular music scene. In 1921, he worked with the Russian singer Aleksander Vertinskii (sometimes: Vertinsky). In 1926, Petersburski, together with his cousin Arthur Gold, co-founded the Petersburski & Gold Orchestra, (Gold is on the left in the back row and Petersburski is in the back row center (photo: uncredited). Petersburski played piano and Gold was the violonist. At the turn of 1920s/1930s, it was perhaps the most popular dance orchestra in Warsaw, which performed in the most fashionable restaurant "Adria". (A well known refrain of one of the songs of that time had "When Petersburski plays with Gold, you will not sleep through the night till dawn").

As mentioned above, ca 1926, the Tango became a world wide craze. In Poland, Zygmunt Wiehler composed the tango "Nie dzis to jutro" ("If not today, tomorrow will do") for Hanka Ordonówna, a prominent singer and actress, and a star of "Qui pro Quo" cabaret. Petersburski's band, besides playing in many of Warsaw's cabarets (such as 'Qui pro Quo' (sometimes 'Cyrulik Warszawski'), 'Morskie Oko' and 'Banda'), also had many recording sessions with such stars as the group 'Chor Dana', Mieczyslaw Fogg -(photo source unknown), Eugeniusz Bodo, Jerzy Czaplicki, and Ludwok Sempolinski. Later, Arthur Gold left the duo to make his own way, and Petersburski continued on his own as merely the "Jerzy Petersburski Orchestra".

Petersburski was the author of numerous cabaret, revue and movie hit songs, among which the most famous was "Oh Donna Clara" (original Polish title: "Tango Milonga"), co-composed by Jerzy Petersburski with lyricist Andrzej Wlast. A German lyric was added by Fritz Loehner-Beda. The original English lyric was by Jimmy Kennedy, and later, another English lyric was added by the famed American lyricist Irving Caesar). Petersburski composed the tune in 1929 for the theatre revue "Morskie Oko" in Warsaw. (Some sources say the tune was composed in 1928, originally called "Tango Milonga, for the music revue 'Warszawa w kwiatach' --'Warsaw in Bloom'.) This big European hit show was later also an American stage play. The first performer of this tune was the popular tango-singer (called "Queen of the Tango") Stanislawa Nowicka. (b. 8 March 1905, Warsaw, d. 24 October 1990, Yorktown k/Nowego Jorku). She also made the first recording of the song. Among the other tangos she sang are "Śpiewając przebój Chodź na Pragę" (music: Arthur Gold, lyric: Tadeusz Stach), "I tak mi ciebie żal" ("As it is me thee sorrow", music: Fanny Gordon, lyric: Valerian Jastrzębiec-Kozłowski, 1932), "Pragnę twoją byc" (m. Arthur Gold, l. Andrew Włast), and "Nie odchodź ode mnie" ("Don't Leave me", m. Arthur Gold, l. Andrew Włast, -a duet with Tadeusz Olszą). Listen now to "Oh Donna Clara", as played by the English orchestra of Jack Hylton, with an English lyric sung by Pat O'Malley. (Recorded: 14/01/31. HMV B-5963 - here digitally re-engineered.)

The tune remained relatively unknown outside of Poland, until the very early 1930s, when the Petersburski Orchestra gave a concert in Vienna, and played the song that was then still known as "Tango Milonga". A powerful Viennese music editor came out of the audience and offered Petersburski the sum of 3000 shillings for the rights to publish the tune, with the proviso that the title had to be changed. Petersburski agreed and that is how the new title "Oh Donna Clara" was born. (Perhaps the best known interpretions of the tune were - besides Pola Negri, - by Al Jolson, who performed it in the Broadway show "Wunderbar", Henry Varna, New Vadeuville Band in London (1967) and the Mantovani Orchestra.

Besides his many tangos, Petersburski also composed many waltzes and foxtrots. Some of the most renowned lyricists for his songs included Andrzej Włast, Ludwik Szmaragd, Marian Hemar, and Artur Tur. He composed music for the Polish movie comedies, e.g. "Co mój maz robi w nocy' (What My Husband Does At Nights?), "Szczęśliwa trzynastka" (A Happy Thirteen), "Robert i Bertrand" (Robert And Bertrand). In 1930-32 he performed in Vienna, Davos, Berlin, Prague and Paris, where he composed "Nie ja, nie ty" (Nor I Neither You) sung by Edith Piaf under the French title "Amour disait folie" ("Love said madness").

Another of his Tango compositions that attained international recognition was "To Ostatnia Niedziela" ("The Last Sunday") composed in 1933, with lyric by Zenon Friedwald describing the final meeting of former lovers who are parting. (In 1935, aka: "This Is the Last Sunday"). Because suicide was so strongly alluded to in the lyric (shown below), the song became widely known in Poland as the "Suicide Tango". During the 1930s, it became a real 'evergreen' in the Soviet Union, where it was played on virtually every street corner in Russian cities. It was so popular, that it was considered their own Russian tune, holding the Russian title "Utomlennoe Solncem" (English: "Burnt by the Sun". Listen now to "Utomlennoe Solnce", (aka in Russia: "Utomlyennoye solntse" -"The Weary Sun"). Petersburski's name as its composer has been forgotten. (This performance is by the Alexandre Cfansman Orchester, with a Russian vocal refrain - recorded by Noginskij Zawod in 1936. (This same tune, sung by famed Polish singer Mieczysław Fogg, can be heard below, and the comparison is interesting.)

This song was one of the symbols of pre-WWII music in the popular culture of Poland. Beside Mieczysław Fogg (aka: Fogiel), it was performed by many other singers. The tune also appeared in a number of films, including Yuriy Norshteyn's 1979 "Tale of Tales" (considered by many international critics to be the greatest animated film ever made), and the award-winning Krzysztof Kieślowski's "White" (1994). The song also became the title and the leading music theme of Nikita Mikhalkov's 1994 film "Utomlennoe Solcem" ("Burnt by the Sun") -a powerful portrait of viciousness in Russia in the 1930s during the Stalin era, which won the 1994 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. More recently, it has been sung by the popular contemporary actor Piotr Fronczewski.

But, this song also had a terribly sad fate. It became known as the 'Death Tango'. In the sadistic Nazi concentrations camps, "The Last Sunday" was often played by a small brass orchestra while Jewish prisoners were led to the gas chambers and ovens to be executed. Later, the song was often used in polish movies about the Nazi concentration camps. It was also played in the Treblinka concentration camp by a Jewish orchestra and a choir, which Artur Gold - one of the camp prisoners before he himself was killed -was forced to organize and also to lead while other Jewish prisoners were marching to the gas chambers. Each musician was dressed in a clown-like shining blue frock and an enormous bow-tie. One of the Treblinka survivors, Moses Laks, has related: "on the sunny days, the choir of the Jewish men and women gathered at the bandstand and, conducted by Artur Gold, sung among many pre-war hits also "the hymn of Treblinka fellows" - "Fester schritt", composed by the Jewish Czech prisoner Walter Hirsch, praising "the pleasures of the camp life" and the "friendliness of the guards". Listen now to perhaps the most popular version of the Death Tango ("To Ostatnia Niedziela" - lyric by Zenon Friedwald), as sung by Mieczysław Fogg. ( né: Mieczysław Fogiel. b. May 30, 1901, Warsaw, --then a provincial town in Imperial Russia, d. Sept. 3, 1990, Warsaw, Poland). The lyric is shown below, in both Polish and English versions.

In 1939, Petersburski served as a sergeant in the Polish Air Forces. In 1940, with the fall of Poland to the German invaders, he managed to flee to the Soviet Union and continued his career in Russia where he again founded the Petersburski & Gold orchestra, this time together with Artur Gold's brother Henryk, a composer who also managed to flee to the Soviet Union. In USSR, Petersburski composed one of the finest war songs "Sinii platochek" ("The Blue Handkerchief"), first sung by Klavdya Shulzhenko (polish title "Blekitna chusteczka"). From the USSR, he moved back to a Polish Army unit formed by General Anders.

In 1947, after World War II ended, he traveled, via Palestine, to settle in Brasil, where he first worked as one half of a piano duo with his friend from pre-war Poland, also a Jewish composer, Alfred Schuetz. Between 1948 and 1968, he lived in Argentina, and worked with 'Radio El Mondo' in Buenos Aires. During this time, be composed the hit song "All Roads Lead to Buenos Aires". (Eight bars of this song became a famous radio jingle.)

While In Buenos Aires, he also co-led, with the famous Polish-Jewish cabaret actor, who had also managed to escape from Warsaw, Kazimierz Krukowski ("Lopek"), the 'El National' theatre orchestra. After the death of his wife, Maria Minkowska - during the earthquake in 1967 - Petersburski moved to Caracas, Venezuela, and in 1968 returned to Poland. In 1968, after returning to Poland and resettling in his beloved Warsaw, he married again with singer Sylwia Klejdysz.

It is perhaps worth noting that Poland's "entertainment industry" was, until the onset of World War II, dominated by Polish Jews. Along with the film producers, most composers of popular music and film scores were also Jewish. There were such men as Henryk Gold, and his brother, Artur Gold (who composed the beautiful tango "Jesienne Róze").    Henryk Wars, and pianist-composer Zygmunt Bialostocki. Szymon Kataszek's and Zygmunt Karenski's jazz orchestra helped to introduce Jazz to Polish audiences in 1929, while cellist and banjo player Fred Melodysta offered the latest Jazz melodies. Another prominent musician was Ada Rosner The names of all of these men often appeared among the film credits of films produced in Poland during the 1920s-'30s.

Polish Lyric: "To Ostatnia Niedziela" (-tango polskie) aka: The Death Tango

Teraz nie pora szukać wymówek,
Fakt, że skończyło się,
Dziś przyszedł drugi, bogatszy
l lepszy ode mnie,
l wraz z tobą skradł szczęście me!
Jedną mam prośbę, może ostatnią
Pierwszą od wielu lat:
Daj mi tę jedną niedzielę, ostatnią niedzielę,
A potem niech wali się świat!

To ostatnia niedziela,
Dzisiaj się rozstaniemy,
Dzisiaj się rozejdziemy
Na wieczny czas.
To ostatnia niedziela,
Więc nie żałuj jej dla mnie,
Spojrzyj czule dziś na mnie
Ostatni raz.
Będziesz jeszcze dość tych niedziel miała,
A co ze mną będzie, któż to wie?
To ostatnia niedziela,
Moje sny wymarzone,
Szczęście tak upragnione
Skończyło się!

Pytasz co zrobię i dokąd pójdę.
Dokąd mam iść? Ja wiem!
Dziś dla mnie jedno jest wyjście,
Ja nie znam innego,
Tym wyjściem jest... no, mniejsza z tem.
Jedno jest ważne, masz być szczęśliwa,
O mnie już nie troszcz się.
Lecz zanim wszystko się skończy,
Nim los nas rozłączy ,
Tę jedną niedzielę daj mnie.

To ostatnia ...

English Lyric: " The Last Sunday" ("To Ostatnia Niedziela")
aka: "The Suicide Tango". aka: "The Death Tango"

Now isn't the time to search for excuses,
The Fact is that it is ended.
Today a second, richer, better one than me came,
and that one, together with you, stole my happiness!

For you - I have this request, maybe the last one, the first in many years:
give me this one Sunday,
One Last Sunday and then let the world bash!
It is the Last Sunday,
today we will part,
today we will split up for all eternity.

It is The Last Sunday, so don't begrudge it for me.
Today, look affectionately at me for the last time.
You will still be going on to have more of these Sundays
and what with me will be done, who knows?
It is The Last Sunday, my dream dreams,
such longed-for Luck has ended!

You are asking what I will do and where I will go.
Where am I supposed to go?
Today I know there is one solution for me
I don't know another,
the only way out...how?
--never mind.

One thing is important,
You must be happy,
and no longer care about me.
Yet, before it ends,
-before fate separates us,
give this one Last Sunday to me.

The Last...

The BigBands Database thanks Dr. Grzegorz Musial, for his gracious help with this Jerzy Petersburski entry. Dr. Grzegorz Musial is by education a medical doctor, and by second profession, a writer and a poet, author of numerous books of poetry and prose, a member of Polish Writers' Association, and the Polish PEN Club.
Among the sources quoted are
Isahar Fater, "The Jewish Music in Poland Between the Wars", Warsaw 1997
Ludwik Sempolinski, "Wielcy artysci malych scen" ("The Great Artists of the Small Stages"), Warsaw 1968
Marian Fuks, "Muzyka ocalona. Judaica polskie" ("The Rescued Music. Polish Judaica"), Warsaw 1989
Samuel Willenberg, "Bunt w Treblince" ("The Mutiny In Treblinka"), Warsaw 1991

      [ Paramount-Orkestern ]
Currently no information on this Swedish dance band.
Please also see the Svenska Paramount-Orkestern, entry.
Known to have recorded "Sweet Sue" (music: Victor Young), "Dinah" (music: Al Lewis, Victor Young, Akst), "I'm afraid of you" (music: Ralph Rainger), and "Det var i sommarnattens elfte timma" with music by Jules Sylvain.