Solomon Schwartz Orchestra: Breaking the Veils

many fans of light jazz have more than once come across recordings of compositions for which it was indicated that they were performed by the Solomon Schwartz Orchestra. We have repeatedly heard the opinion that this orchestra never existed in reality, and the question of who actually created all the compositions attributed to it has long been one of the mysteries of modern music.

With a little effort, one could find out that all the compositions released under the Solomon Schwartz brand became known to the general public after the Solomon Schwartz disc “EtSon Orchestra” (1963) was released in the early 2000s. Since no one could find the recording from the early 60s, and the authors of the modern disc did not give any explanations about this, this gave rise to various rumors. However, recently a collector from Kuban, Nikolai Pushkarsky, announced that he had a phonogram of a mysterious recording from 1963. This turned out to be true, but the original vinyl disc still remained unfound for some time.

And then suddenly the mystery was solved:Boris Simonov managed to find the original disc with the same recordings of jazz arrangements of Jewish folk songs that were contained both on the disc from the early 2000s and on the found phonogram from the early 60s. Only this disc featured the authorship of completely different performers, namely the ensemble THE TEMPLES. At the same time, the title of this record was listed as BEI MIR TWIST DU SCH? N, and it was released in 1967, and the place of release was New York. Apparently, the soloist of this orchestra was the famous jazz performer, composer and arranger George Siravo, who at one time took part in the work of many famous jazz orchestras.

As for the Solomon Schwartz Orchestra, it really existed and was really engaged in modern processing of Jewish folklore, but at the same time all of their compositions were vocal and did not have elements of a twist. The head of the orchestra himself was born in the second decade of the twentieth century. His homeland was England: his ancestors moved there either from Romanian or Polish lands. This man’s real name is Stanley Black. He was a musical prodigy: as soon as he was twelve, he was already performing with a symphony orchestra.

Most likely, the confusion arose due to poor communication between Soviet jazz connoisseurs and the foreign jazz industry. However, today this mystery has been solved.