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Current Affairs"Rakija 'n' Roll" - a taste of the Balkans in Prague
This week visitors to Prague's Svanda Theatre are being treated to a feast
of Balkan music, with the launch of a new CD by the band Gothart. In the
northern climes of the Czech Republic this is not a traditional sound -
associated more with sand and sea and summer holidays on the Adriatic
where Czech tourists flock in their hundreds of thousands every summer.
But what's unusual about this recording is that all the musicians are
Czech. David Vaughan asked world music expert Petr Doruzka for his
impressions of the new CD, and started with its rather eccentric title
"Rakija 'n' Roll".
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Czech MusicFritz Weiss and a series of miraculous wartime jazz recordings
Prague's Jewish Museum recently released a CD that is nothing short of
miraculous. At the height of the Nazi occupation of Prague during the
Second World War, the Czech Jewish jazz musician, Fritz Weiss, made nearly
thirty recordings with the Emil Ludvik Orchestra. Weiss was musical leader
of the band and also made all the arrangements. Amazingly, he continued to
work with the band even after he was sent to the Terezin ghetto. In Encore
today, we'll be telling the story of these extraordinary swing recordings,
made literally in the shadow of the swastika.
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