The Lithuanian Popular Music Orchestra

 By Rūta Skudienė

After the Second World War, performers of light music who had not left the country because of the political changes gathered in Kaunas. Gradually, the popular “music sessions” that had taken place between the two world wars were revived in the Konradas cafe, which was later renovated and named Tulpė, and elsewhere. However, Lithuania was cut off from the world by the Soviet regime, and attempts were made to downplay the image of the temporary capital in every way.
Jazz was officially considered music of opposition to the Soviet regime, an unwelcome expression of a free spirit and world-view.
At that time, Bolshevik Party ideologues called it “the music of the fatties” and “a piece of mud falling into clear spring water”. It was risky to play jazz or to be called a jazz band. In the article “O buvo taip” (It was Like that), the musicologist Liudas Šaltenis (1941–1994) wrote: “Party leaders checked Vilnius and Kaunas restaurants, looking for musicians playing saxophones, as the instrument had fallen into disgrace. The names of Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, and other renowned jazzmen, disappeared from the repertoire, but not their music. Only the music of Georg Gershwin, an expatriate from Russia, could officially be played."¹
The time was turbulent, so it is not surprising that so little is known about Juozas Tiškus’ big band, a once famous jazz ensemble. Tiškus, an authority on Lithuanian popular music and the leader of the ensemble Estradinės melodijos (Light Music Melodies) in the 1980s, is associated with the time when the Vilnius Recording Studio operated. Almost no one mentioned the Lithuanian Popular Music Orchestra, as it was officially called.
The founder of the orchestra received his first strong impressions of jazz in Kaunas, listening to the radio and records, and to the sounds of the orchestra emanating from the Lozana (Lausanne) restaurant near his parents’ house; later, he acquired a musical education and played in various ensembles.

In 1955, a student big band formed at the Kaunas Polytechnic Institute, led by Juozas Tiškus (1929–2006), an accordionist, keyboardist, arranger and composer, and graduate of the Juozas Gruodis Music School.
The first concert took place on 6 March 1955.²
The article by Liudas Šaltenis quotes the composer Vygandas Telksnys, then a member of the orchestra, saying that the musicians did everything themselves: they painted and made the stage sets, with palm trees, installed the lighting, bought microphones, constructed stands ... But the main problem was clothes. White and brown checked jackets were extremely fashionable at the time. Only a few members of the orchestra had these jackets. One was stationed by the building of the Polytechnic Institute, and every passer-by wearing a checked jacket was asked to swap jackets for an hour. Those who agreed were admitted to the concert. Eventually, the set was complete, and only one jacket, for the smallest musician, was lacking. He was lent one by a woman who was passing by. The audience was stunned, and demanded that every other number be replayed; and when the men’s quartet led by Romualdas Kaziliūnas started the popular song “Indonesia”, the audience went berserk ...
Nevertheless, the orchestra aroused the suspicions of the Kaunas authorities, and was looked on as an ensemble that “polluted” the cultural face of Kaunas.
In 1957, the big band became the Youth Orchestra of the Kaunas City Culture Department, and participated in the 6th World Festival of Democratic Youth and Students in Moscow (it took fourth place in the selection for the festival programme out of 17 competitors). Michel Legrand’s big band and Krysztof Komeda’s sextet participated in the festival, among other famous performers.
According to the conductor, the experience gained was invaluable: they met real jazzmen, acquired original scores and parts from the Karel Wlach Orchestra, and had an opportunity to analyse jazz music professionally. The conductor began to study Glenn Miller’s method of orchestral arranging and Henry Mancini’s arrangement studio,³ and developed a highly successful programme called "Festival Souvenirs".⁴ The orchestra flourished.
In the spring of 1958, by order of Juozas Banaitis, the minister of culture, the Lithuanian Popular Music Orchestra was established at the Philharmonic Society. After the musicians moved to the Philharmonic Hall, extensive touring began.
There was a great lack of good jazz performers. The conductor sought out jazzmen in Latvia, Estonia and Belarus, and in Leningrad, Moscow and Kazan. The composition of the orchestra was constantly changing, and eventually musicians of seven nationalities played in the orchestra, alongside the best Lithuanian instrumentalists: Czech, Belarussian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Russian and Jewish musicians from Leningrad and Moscow. Works were also ingeniously arranged for the orchestra by the band’s musicians, the saxophonist Vitalii Dolgov and the trumpet player Jaroslav Jansa.⁵
To improve the orchestra (with five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones and a rhythm section),⁶ the conductor even went to circus performances in search of artists, to listen to the bands playing there.
In the 1960s, the LEO became one of the best orchestras in the Soviet Union, and was compared to Oleg Lundstrem’s famous jazz band.
“In those days, every Soviet republic had its own band. Every month, three or four big bands would come to Kaunas to perform. They were like symphony orchestras," said Juozas Tiškus in an interview with Muzikos barai magazine. "They may not have played jazz, but they could syncopate and swing ... At the time, the master of ceremonies was the axis of the programme, around whom everything revolved: they read political satires, political couplets, and monologues directed against American culture. Alcoholics, dandies, new boogie-woogies and rock and roll were criticised. After that, we performed a song about peace called 'Vo imia zavtrašnego dnia' [In the Name of the Future] and played jazz.”⁷
During one concert, the orchestra performed 12 or 14 of the most complex standards for orchestra by Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Quincy Jones and Benny Golson. The rest of the programme was devoted to music of lighter genres by Lithuanian composers.
The composers Benjaminas Gorbulskis, Vygandas Telksnys and Mikas Vaitkevičius wrote for the orchestra. The soloists Vida Vaitkutė, Džilda Mažeikaitė and others sang with the orchestra. By 1966, the LEO had given over 1,200 concerts in many cities of the Soviet Union, achieving great mastery.⁸
Still, the orchestra’s leader was constantly under pressure. Commissioned articles sharply critical of the orchestra’s repertoire appeared in the press, and it was claimed that jazz was alien to Soviet Lithuanian culture.⁹ The “Party leaders” who supervised cultural events determined how much of each kind of music could be played. Even in Russia, it was not officially possible to be called a jazz band, although bands such as those of Eddie Rozner (called the white Louis Armstrong), who later took over half the LEO musicians,¹⁰ and Oleg Lundstrem, were called jazz bands for some time. The names of many foreign composers were not mentioned in concert programmes; the authors and the titles of the works played were changed or invented. Until the “Khrushchev Thaw” in the 1960s and later, jazz was still considered an unacceptable phenomenon for Soviet ideology and Lithuanian culture.
Unfortunately, not a single LEO record was released; only four 1965 recordings of a concert in Vilnius have survived.  
With extensive changes to the composition of the orchestra, the LEO was transformed into the Estradinės melodijos (Light Music) ensemble, which gave concerts until 1986. Encouraged by the LEO’s creative activities, the big bands of Šiauliai Construction Trust and Kaunas Oktava, and the Nemunas žiburiai orchestra, which later became the Lietuvos estradinis ansamblis (LEA, Lithuanian Light Music Ensemble), were established.
As if saying goodbye to the famous big band, in 1966 the Estradinės melodijos ensemble, with unprecedented speed for that time, recorded Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s composition "Serenade to a Cuckoo”. (The composition was released in the West in 1964.) In this version, the flute was played by Vytautas Baltrušaitis, and Nijolė Ščiukaitė sang. The recording was often broadcast on Lithuanian radio, and a record was released.¹¹ It is true that Kirk’s name was not on the programme: the author was different and the title of the work was also changed (to J. Šenkas, “Ancient Clock with a Cuckoo”, according to Nijolė Ščiukaitė).
In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, jazz orchestras were formed by musicians migrating from one continent or country to another. The change in performers promoted new, better-quality forms and possibilities of music, and inspired progress and creativity in improvisation. A similar process of formation of big bands took place during the years of the LEO’s existence in the Soviet Union. In Lithuania at that time, jazz bands of various compositions were formed, plays were arranged, the jazz standards of foreign authors were played, and concerts were given. It was still difficult for Lithuanian musicians to perform the complex repertoire of the jazz band. Thus, Juozas Tiškus created a famous big band with the best musicians from the Soviet Union, and made Lithuania’s name famous with this ensemble, called the Lithuanian Popular Music Orchestra. In speaking of the world’s most famous big bands, we mention the names of their leaders first. Juozas Tiškus deserves such special attention. As the leader of the Lithuanian Popular Music Orchestra, he undoubtedly deserves the title of pioneer of Lithuanian jazz.

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¹ Šaltenis, Liudas. "O buvo taip: iš džiazo veterano prisiminimų" (It was Like that: From a Jazz Veteran’s Reminiscences). Publika, Vilnius, 1992, No 3-4.
² Šaltenis, Liudas. "Lietuvos džiazo saulėtekis" (The Dawn of Lithuanian Jazz). Literatūra ir menas, 19 March 1988.
³ Mancini, Henry. Sounds and Scores: A Practical Guide to Professional Orchestration (1962).
⁴ Listavičiūtė, Aušra. "Garsusis Juozo Tiškaus bigbendas" (The Famous Juozas Tiškus Big Band). Muzikos barai, 8 July 2002, p. 54.
⁵ Jakutis, Ričardas. Atsiminimai apie Maestro Juozą Tiškų (Remembering the Maestro Juozas Tiškus). Versus aureus. Vilnius: 2008, p. 51
⁶ Idem, p. 45
⁷ Listavičiūtė, p. 55
⁸ Šaltenis, Liudas. “Mūza su mikrofonu” (Muse with a Microphone). Vilnius: Mintis,1983, p. 18
⁹ Žigaitis, Rimvydas. “Už savitą meninį veidą” (For Individual Artistic Expression). Vakarinės naujienos, 31 January 1963; Давать бой пошлости! (Fight against Vulgarity), Известия, 18 April 1963.
¹⁰ Jakutis, p. 41.
¹¹ Д-00022037-38, Melodiya, 1968.