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The Chocolate Kiddies, billed as a "negro operetta", under the auspices of the Soviet Government, toured the Soviet Union in 1926 for three months, beginning February. They performed in Moscow and Leningrad.

Production and cast

Cast members included Greenlee and Drayton, Bobby and Babe Goins, George Stetson, Lottie Gee, George Robinson, Strut Payne, a dozen choristers, and Sam Wooding and His Orchestra. Art direction by Harold Goldberg.

History

The Chocolate Kiddies company arrived in Moscow February 1926, where the company performed at the Second State Circus (photo of venue), formerly known as the Nikitin Circus Building, on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street. Rufus Greenlee stated that Stalin attended one of the Moscow performances (Lenin had been dead for two years), and a number of scenes of the group’s appearance in the city can be seen in Dziga Vertov’s film A Sixth Part of the World (1926). The company also performed at the Leningrad Music Hall.

American musicologist Laurel E. Fay wrote that, in February 1926, composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who was beginning gain international stature, had been attending concerts in Leningrad, which included an outstanding performance of Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings conducted by Fritz Stiedry (1883–1968). He also judged Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges, which 4 years after its world premier in Chicago, received its Soviet premier in Leningrad February 1926. But, according to Fay, "the jazz band of Sam Wooding and the Chocolate Kiddies" – performed in Leningrad – "was, to Shostakovich, a musical revelation of America." "The vitality and enthusiasm of the performers also made an indelible impression." Shostakovich went on to become a well-known jazz-influenced classical composer.

Russians in Moscow were first introduced to live jazz October 1, 1922, by Valentin Parnakh (1891–1951), a Russian himself. But the reach and influence was limited. By contrast, Wooding's Chocolate Kiddies big band, during the 1926 tour, made a sensation that created demand for jazz in Russia that ended in a Stalinist crackdown. Wooding's band, one of the first American jazz bands to perform in the Soviet Union, is believed to be the last American jazz group to perform in the Soviet Union, until Benny Goodman and his Orchestra performed in Moscow, Leningrad, Sochi, Tbilisi, Kyiv, and Tashkent in 1962 (see Khrushchev Thaw), several years after Voice of America Jazz Hour, hosted by Willis Conover was launched.

Producers

Arthur Seymour Lyons managed the Russian tour on behalf of Leonidoff (né Leonid Davydovich Leonidoff-Bermann; born abt. 1886) and Sirotta, producers.

Selected other tours

References

1. "Tommy Ladnier in Rusland" (in Dutch), by Bo Lindström (born 1939) and Daniel Vernhettes (born 1942), Doctor Jazz Magazine (nl) (Amsterdam), June 2009, p. 16; ISSN 0166-2309
2. Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance, Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns (1994 ed.), p. 296
   1. Collier-Macmillan (1968); OCLC 655466715
   2. Macmillan (1971); OCLC 900269
   3. Schirmer (1979); OCLC 720681903, 1069868504; ISBNs 0-0287-2510-7, 978-0-0287-2510-9
   4. Da Capo Press (paperback) (1994); OCLC 610972997; ISBNs 0-3068-0553-7, 978-0-3068-0553-0
3. "Chocolate Kiddies: The Show That Brought Jazz to Europe and Russia in 1925," by Björn Englund (sv) (born 1942), Storyville, December 1975–January 1976, pps. 44–50
4. Shostakovich: A Life, by Laurel E. Fay, Oxford University Press (2000; paperback 2005), p. 31Note: Laurel Elizabeth Fay, PhD, is a prolific American musicologist, and in particular, a scholar on Russian (and Soviet) music.
5. "Sam Wooding Dies at 90 – Took U.S. Jazz to Russia Before Ban," Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1985, part 2, p. 2 (accessible via Newspapers.com; subscription required)
6. "Firm That Stranded Colored Show Busy" – (dateline: London July 10), Variety, Vol. 84, No. 1, July 21, 1926, p. 2, col. 2 (bottom)
7. Traveling Blues: The Life and Music of Tommy Ladnier, by Bo Lindström (born 1939) and Daniel Vernhettes (born 1942), Paris: Jazz'Edit (2009); OCLC 471874599, 1010079957

• 1920s in music
• Russian jazz
• Harlem Renaissance
• 1926 in Russia