Sunday, February 1, 2009

Speaking stereotypes

A recently found quotation:


"If you listened to my recordings in the Soviet Union during the darkest days of the Cold War, you could be sent to Siberia or worse. They listened to my records, and they called it “Jazz in Bones.” Using X-ray plates, they could record Willis Conover and get a fairly good recording. If you were caught with that, you were dead. But the doctors and the nurses and the students would very carefully listen to these recordings, and they had underground jazz meetings all the time."


"Cool Jazz and the Cold War. Dana Gioia Interviews Dave Brubeck on Cultural Diplomacy" (in: 2006 NEA Jazz Masters Awards brochure)


What a heap of biased, stereotype-driven, stereotype-loaded and stereotype-governed rubbish. If you were caught with Willis Conover radio shows recorded on the X-ray plates (???? -- there was enough tape machines by the time Willis would be the most popular jazz DJ in the Soviet Union; X-ray plates were for copying the original vinyls, otherwise unavailable in the country) you were DEAD??? Cattle crap.

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