After a recent move to the west country it wasn't long before I had found the local junk shop "Treasure Island" and was trawling their boxes of records. After passing the usual Doris Day and Ambrose and his Orchestra I found a few Polish titles, here are my highlights of the find.
Eryana Choir were a Polish male group vocal founded in 1930 by John Ernst (pseudonym Eryan , composer , pianist , arranger).
The choir was made up of singers: Adam Lach , Slawomir Neczypór , Boleslaw Satanic , and Mieczyslaw Ziołowski . Their first performance took place on 5 February 1931 , in the Lviv Theater. A year later they made the first recordings, and then actively played concerts (about 1000 performances). They also participated in many broadcasts for radio (about 250) .
Peter Lescenco (Pyotr Leshchenko) performed for European nobles and "White" (anti-Bolshevik) Russian émigrés at his own "Leschenko" cabaret in Bucharest (dubbed the "Eastern Maxim's"). The first part of every performance would typically be dedicated to gypsy music, but during the second part Leshchenko would dress up in a tuxedo, with a white silk handkerchief and sing and dance Argentine tango.
Peter Lescenco (Pyotr Leshchenko)
In the Soviet Union his work was banned both because he was believed to be a White émigré (which he was not legally) and because the style (tango and foxtrot) was deemed counter-revolutionary. Nevertheless, secretly he was very popular: people would even listen to Radio Tehran to hear his music, '78 records were smuggled into the country from the Baltics, and specialists would bootleg his music onto "ribs" (used X-ray plates).
Adam Nowicki i Jego Warszawiaki "Polka Na Niedziele (Sunday Polka)"
Adam Nowicki is a Polka pioneer, his mentor was the great Bernard Witkowski with who he played in the 30s.
In 1937 he formed his first trio. In 1940, his musical career was put on hold, as he was drafted into the Army, where he was a noted musician.
In 1948, his group made a promotional record and was signed by Columbia and through their vast distribution the bands popularity and workload increased. Also in 1948 he married Anne Kuliczowski and had two lovely daughters, who are also very fine musicians in their own right. After four years with the Columbia Label the Adam Nowicki Orchestra continued to record for Epic, Rave, Musico, Request, Piknic and other labels.
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