KENNY BALL
AND HIS JAZZMEN

Midnight in Moscow

In 1955, Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi, a Leningrad-born composer of romantic melodies and film scores, unveiled a lovely tune he called "Podmoskovnye Vechera (Leningrad Nights)." The Soviet government requested the title be changed to "Moscow Nights" (it's also known in some translations as "Moscow Evenings") and he figured it would be in his best interest to comply. Lyrics were added by Russian poet Mikhail Matusovosky (whose musical works often originated as poems). The following year, the song was recorded by well-known Russian vocalist Vladimir Troshin. The first version to appear on the other side of the Iron Curtain was a catchy, variable-tempo instrumental cover by Amsterdam-based jazz band The New Orleans Syncopators, released in early 1961 under a new title, "Midnight in Moscow." In September of that year, Kenny Ball recorded a faster-tempo hit version of this revised arrangement with his group The Jazzmen.

Ilford (near Dagenham, the East London location of Britain's Ford auto factory) was Kenny's birthplace. His mother was quite musical; family members frequently came to the house to play and Kenny often joined in on harmonica. The London bombings of World War II (autumn 1940 through spring 1941), referred to by locals as "The Blitz," occurred when he was just eleven. He played bugle as a member of the Sea Cadets (the Royal Navy's youth organization) and advanced to trumpet during his high school years. Later, he made the rounds with a number of local bands and by 1953 decided he could make a living at it; clarinet player Sid Phillips became an accomplice as Kenny formed his first (yet nameless) band. For the next few years, the act appeared throughout the London area and occasionally performed on radio shows. Trombonist John Bennett joined in 1958; other members in the early years included guitarist "Paddy" Lightfoot, drummer Eric Delaney and clarinetist Dave Jones.

The well-dressed Mr. Ball, showing off his vocal abilities as well as trumpet skills, had an outgoing stage presence favored by audiences. Traditional jazz underwent a resurgence in popularity in the late '50s and early '60s and Ball, in addition to trombonist-bandleader Chris Barber and clarinet specialist Mr. Acker Bilk, became widely known as "The Three Bs of Trad Jazz," enjoying notable record sales, not just on the charts in England but numerous other countries. Signing with Pye Records in 1959, his records were initially credited to Kenny Ball and his Jazz Band, though the latter part was altered to the equally simple-but-streamlined Jazzmen in 1961, just after his first U.K. hit single, a vocal remake of Cole Porter's "Samantha" (originally titled "I Love You, Samantha," Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong showcased the song in the popular 1956 musical comedy film High Society). Two other songs with Kenny singing lead reached the British top 40 in the spring and summer of '61: "I Still Love You All" and "Someday (You'll Be Sorry)."

Kenny Ball

The choice to do a toe-tapping take of "Midnight in Moscow," even at the height of the Cold War, was a good one. It took off in late 1961, then reached number three on the U.K. charts in January '62 on its way to further success in much of the world. An EP on Pye issued concurrent with the single's peak took a stab at making the band look Russian without it being the case; headgear simulated the image, yet was nothing like the fuzzy papakha hats worn by Cossacks (just chalk up the image to Ball's off-kilter sense of humor). Kapp Records, the label that licensed the song for release in America, started promoting it at this time and in March it rode high in the number two spot on Billboard's Hot 100 and at number one on the Easy Listening survey. Follow-up instrumental "March of the Siamese Children," from Rodgers and Hammerstein's decade-old Broadway musical (and mid-'50s film adaptation) The King and I returned Ball and his band to the U.K. top ten while making a much-lower showing in the U.S.

A third consecutive British top ten, "The Green Leaves of Summer," Dimitri Tiomkin and Ben Webster's famous song from John Wayne's troubled epic The Alamo, also made a minimal showing in the States. Kenny then resumed singing on the U.K.-only summer hit "So Do I." Instro "The Payoff," penned by acclaimed horn player Sidney Bechet, made a solid showing in Kenny's homeland late in the year. Next, he got the jump on a global phenomenon: Kyu Sakamoto's 1961 Japanese hit "Ue o Muite Aruko" was discovered by Pye Records chairman Louis Benjamin, who renamed the instrumental cover "Sukiyaki" (an easy title to remember) and watched Kenny catapult it into Britain's top ten in the early weeks of 1963. While Sakamoto's original wasn't a hit in Britain, there were few other places where it didn't dominate.

Kenny and the Jazzmen successfully forged ahead. "Rondo" (based on Wolfgang Mozart's "Turkish March"), Tijuana Brass tune "Acapulco 1922," "Washington Square" (a cover of The Village Stompers' late-'63 hit with that familiar international jazz flavor) and Bond theme "From Russia With Love" stood among a score or more of notable mid-'60s recordings. His final British chart appearance came in '67 with a vocal rendition of The Beatles' "When I'm 64." As the "trad boom" wound down, Kenny proved resilient, continuing to record for Pye through 1977 and being welcomed as a headlining act (with a changing lineup of band members) in places as far-flung as Australia, Japan, Russia, New Orleans and, of course, his homeland, where he sometimes staged "superstar" concerts with longtime trad cohorts Barber and Bilk. The stage provided a second home until shortly before his death in 2013 at age 82.

As for the songs from the Russian/Soviet sector that have made the most impact on western pop culture, the majority came between the mid-19th century romantic period and what might be called the mid-20th century modern classical era. The incredibly successful works of Pyotr Tchaikovsky ("Swan Lake," "Romeo and Juliet," "The Nutcracker Suite"), Modest Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" and "The Flight of the Bumblebee," Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird" and Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" and "War and Peace" are but a few. Then there's the folk standard "Song of the Volga Boatmen," written in the 1860s and reconfigured as a pop smash by Glenn Miller in 1941. Solovyov-Sedoi and Matusovosky's "Midnight in Moscow," particularly the million-selling jazz-pop rendition by Englishman Kenny Ball that positioned this brilliant musical work on the worldwide stage, has earned a place among these milestones of Russian music.

- Michael Jack Kirby




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Midnight in Moscow