Eugeniusz Bodo & Orkiestra lwowska Tea-Jazz pod dyr. Henryka Warsa [Tea-Jazz Orchestra of Lwów dir. by Henryk Wars] - Прощальная песенка львовского джаза [The Goodbye Song of Lwów’s Jazz Orchester] Original Polish Title: Tylko we Lwowie! [It’s Only In Lwów!], Apelevskij Zavod, 1940 (USSR)
NOTE: Here’s another rare gem from Soviet archives of the Polish artists’ recordings, made during the 2nd WW in Aprelevskij Zavod. This side contains the last recording cut by Eugeniusz Bodo in his lifetime. Bodo was a prewar star of the Polish musical film comedy, he was also singer and dancer in Warsaw theatres and cabarets between the wars. His popularity can be compared only with that of Maurice Chevalier in France or Al Jolson in USA. Born in 1899 in Genève, Switzerland (his father was Swiss) he spent his childhood in Łódź, where his family owned a cinema business. As teenager he debuted – against will of his parents - on stage of a cabaret in Łódź and then, strongly believing in his success, he traveled to Warsaw. And indeed, that handsome, always smiling young man quickly became a start of the smaller stages in the capital city. Then came cinema and crowds of teenage fans constantly besieging him on the streets or in trendy cafes, where he appeared in newest outfits designed by English fashion houses, he advertised for. Some of his film roles: like the “Polish Mae West” in the comedy “Piętro wyżej”(Upstairs; 1936) where he playes disguised as an American movie star - will remain on the Golden Pages of Polish film history. Outbreak of the 2nd WW in September 1939 and bombardment of Warsaw, made Eugeniusz Bodo run away eastwards, to the still unoccupied city of Lwów. Always trustful in his good luck - as well as the Swiss passport in his pocket (he had a double Polish and Swiss citizenship) - Bodo underestimated the danger and refused to return to the part of Poland occupied by the Germans, although he was urged by his mother who stayed in Warsaw. When on the 17th Sept 1939 the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the East, and all of the Lwów region was captured by the Stalinist regime, Eugeniusz Bodo was immediately arrested as a foreigner, yet his imprisonment did not last long. Released from the arrest, he found shelter joining the Tea-Jazz Orchestra organized in Lwów in late Fall 1939 by Henryk Wars, from among Polish artists who, just like Eugeniusz Bodo left Warsaw running away from the Germans, and now got trapped in Lwów, under the Soviet regime. Henryk Wars – who was a famed film composer and promoter of the jazz music – which, even among the Soviet apparatchiks, had quite a few devoted fans in that time – managed to receive a permission to tour in the Soviet Union and give concerts of the popular music for the Soviet audience. They traveled in the filthy boxcars, exhausted and poorly nourished but happy, they are alive and living outside of the gulag camps, where many of their Polish friends were imprisoned in that time. The success of Tea Jazz Orchestra and its soloists, like Adam Harris, Eugeniusz Bodo or Renata Bogdańska-Jarosewicz was immense and they enjoyed their bohemian life traveling around Stalin’s Empire until outbreak of the war between two previous allies: the Soviet Russia and the Nazi Germany in June 1942. That was the end of the Tea Jazz band and most of its members immediately traveled to the assembly points organized for the Poles who stayed in USSR, to join the newly created Polish Army Forces in Exile – which soon marches out fromj Russia and joined their Western allies in the Middle East and North Africa. That’s how most of the Tea Jazz survived the war – except for Eugeniusz Bodo. Shortly after recording this “|Goodbye Song”, he was arrested once again and as “international spy” sent to the labor camp in the North of Russia. Two years later, on the 7th Oct 1943, one of the most popular and talented Polish film actors of the 20th century died of hunger and overwork in Kotlas.
The song performed by Eugeniusz Bodo is a very popular Polish prewar hit “Tylko we Lwowie” (It’s Only In Lwów!) composed by Henryk Wars in 1938, for the comedy musical “Włóczęgi” (The Wanderers”), which was released in Poland early in 1939. Of course, in the Stalinist Russia neither Polish original title nor Polish lyrics praising the beauty and charme of the Polish Lwów, wouldn’t have been accepted by Stalinist censors, therefore the title had been changed to: A Goodbye Song of the Lwów’s Jazz Orchestra and the Russian lyrics tell nothing about Polish history of the city. However, the repeated exclamations of the Chorus: “Просим во Львов!” and “Ждем вас во Львове” meaning: “We are waiting for you in Lwów” sound for every Polish ear like an announcement, that Poles would return to Lwów again.
