Phantom Dancer :: 12:00pm 6th Jun 2023

Arnošt Kavka is your Phantom Dancer feature artist this week. He was a Czech swing singer and composer who you’ll hear with Karel Vlach’s Orchestra and the Allan Sisters in records made between 1939-44.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 6 June) and weeks of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

 

ARNOST

Arnošt Kavka began learning saxophone at fifteen. A year later he switched to drums, studying with drummer Laci Ollah.

He founded the student orchestra Black and White in 1934, then worked as a drummer in the Gramoklub orchestra led by Jan Šíma and finally the Blue Music band which became the Karel Vlach Orchestra.

Karel Vlach suggested he move from drums to singing. So he studied with Josef Malina and with the Robert de Kers Orchestra in Oostende, Belgium, where he mainly learned  microphone technique.

Returning from Belgium, he sang with the Blue Boys Orchestra and made his first records for Ultraphon in 1939

That year he entered the law faculty of Charles University in Prague. When the Second World War came the universities were closed.

Karel Vlach formed his orchestra in 1939 and Arnošt Kavka became his permanent singer until 1944. During this time he acquired his nickname “Doctor Swing” from his most famous Vlach recording (you’ll hear it on the Allan Sisters Phantom Dancer show) and which became his trademark.

KAVKA

During the war Arnošt Kavka trained as a bookseller and publisher with orchestra leader RA Dvorský, who protected him from total deployment.

Total deployment (German Totaleinsatz or NS-Zwangsarbeit ) was the name for forced labor deployment which inhabitants of occupied countries were subjected to during Nazi Germany.

Totally deployed, they were mostly involuntarily transported to the Third Reich, where they performed slave labor under inhumane conditions.

Kavka was arrested by the Gestapo in Zlín in 1944 for avoiding total deployment and spent the rest of the war in concentration camps.

Shortly before the end of World War II, he managed to escape from the labour camp in Prague’s Hagibor . In 1944, his daughter died during the bombing of the Holešovice power plant. 

He finished law school after 1945 and started his own septet.

Following the communist coup in 1948, he tried to meet the demands of the time and play socialist jazz based on folk motifs. However, by the 1950s, he was forbidden to perform in public and had to take band exams.

Later he performed as a musical comedian in spa towns and abroad.

After the Prague Spring in the 1960s he played on radio and television. He used his own instrument, the Kavka eintet – he played the organ with his left hand, an electrophonic instrument like a piano with thirty registers with his right, and operated a large drum and cymbal with his feet.

In the early 1970s, he performed on an American ocean liner.

He appeared on Czechoslovak Television programs, including Televariete in the 1980s

In 1987 he was named a meritorious artist.

 

6 June PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney
LISTEN ONLINECommunity Radio Network Show CRN #601

107.3 2SER Tuesday 6 June 2023
12:04 – 2:00pm (+10 hours GMT) and Saturdays 5 – 5:55pm
National Program
5UV Adelaide Monday 2:30 – 3:30am
5GTR Mt Gambier Monday 2:30 – 3:30am
3MBR Murrayville Monday 3 – 4am
4NAG Keppel FM Monday 3 – 4am
2MIA Griffith Monday 3 – 4am
2BAR Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4am
2BRW Braidwood Monday 3 – 4am
2YYY Young Monday 3 – 4am
3VKV Alpine Radio Monday 6 – 7pm
7MID Oatlands Monday 3am – 4 and 6 -7pm
2RDJ Burwood Wednesday 12 – 1pm
2MCE Bathurst Wednesday 9 – 10am
1ART ArtsoundFM Canberra Friday 10 – 11am
and Sunday 11pm
Reading Radio (QLD) Friday 1am – 2
2RRR Ryde Friday 11am – 12
2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm
5LCM Lofty FM Adelaide Friday 1 – 2pm
6GME Radio Goolarri Broome Saturday 4am – 5am
Denmark FM (West Australia) Saturday 10 – 11am
Repeat: Wednesdays 10 – 11pm
7LTN Launceston Sunday 5 – 6am
3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am
3BBR West Gippsland Sunday 5 – 6pm
2SEA Sapphire Coast Eden Sunday 9 – 10pm

Set 1
1950s Swing
Blue Lou
Ralph Marterie Orchestra
‘Treasury Bandstand’
WBBM CBS Chicago
26 Dec 1956
My Old Flame
Ralph Marterie Orchestra
‘Treasury Bandstand’
WBBM CBS Chicago
26 Dec 1956
The Girl Next Door
Ralph Marterie Orchestra (voc) Bill Walters
‘Treasury Bandstand’
WBBM CBS Chicago
26 Dec 1956
Rock Rock + Theme Ralph Marterie Orchestra (voc) Band
‘Treasury Bandstand’
WBBM CBS Chicago
26 Dec 1956
Set 2
1948 TV
Blues
Teddy Hale (bebop tap dancer) Johnny Mercer (voc) Mary Lou Williams (piano)
‘Eddie Condon Floor Show’
WPIX TV NYC
1948
Down Among the Sheltering Palms
Johnny Mercer (voc) Mary Lou Williams (piano)
‘Eddie Condon Floor Show’
WPIX TV NYC
1948
Slow Blues
Johnny Mercer (voc) Mary Lou Williams (piano)
‘Eddie Condon Floor Show’
WPIX TV NYC
1948
Set 3
Arnost Kavka
Jak se mám seznámit s Vámi
Orchestr Karla Vlacha (voc) Arnošt Kavka Ultraphon Records
Prague
1940
Kdy a kde
Orchestr Karla Vlacha (voc) Arnošt Kavka
Ultraphon Records
Prague
1941
Hm Hm (du bist so zauberhaft)
Orchestr Karla Vlacha (voc) Arnošt Kavka, Sestry Allanovy
Ultraphon Records
Prague
1942
 Škola lásky
Orchestr Karla Vlacha (voc) Arnošt Kavka, Sestry Allanovy Ultraphon Records
Prague
1942
Koncert nemluvňat
Orchestr Karla Vlacha (voc) Arnošt Kavka, Sestry Allanovy
Ultraphon Records
Prague
1940
Set 4
Yank Bandstand
Maryland My Maryland (theme) + Panama
Paul Tanner and his Solid Seven
‘Yank Bandstand’
AFRS Hollywood
1943
Embraceable You
Paul Tanner and his Solid Seven
‘Yank Bandstand’
AFRS Hollywood
1943
Exactly Like You
Paul Tanner and his Solid Seven
‘Yank Bandstand’
AFRS Hollywood
1943
In a Little Spanish Town + Basin Street Bues + Maryland My Maryland (theme)
Paul Tanner and his Solid Seven
‘Yank Bandstand’
AFRS Hollywood
1943
Set 5
1950s Duke Ellington
Boy Meets Horn
Duke Ellington Orchestra
Birdland
WNBC NBC NYC
11 June 1951
Take the A Train
Duke Ellington Orchestra (voc) Bette Roche
Blue Note
WMAQ NBC Chicago
13 Aug 1952
Flying Home
Duke Ellington Orchestra
‘Blue Note
WMAQ NBC Chicago
13 Aug 1952
The Happening + Got to Go
Duke Ellington Orchestra
Meadowbrook Ballroom
Cedar Grove NJ
WNBC NBC NYC
6 Jun 1951
Set 6
Harry James
Jump Sauce
Harry James Orchestra
Meadowbrook Gardens
KECA ABC LA
10 Feb 1946
I Can’t Begin to Tell You
Harry James Orchestra (voc) Ginny Powell
Meadowbrook Gardens
KECA ABC LA
10 Feb 1946
Memphis Blues
Harry James Orchestra
Hotel Astor Roof
WABC CBS NYC
28 Aug 1942
But Not For Me
Harry James Orchestra (voc) Helen Forrest
Hotel Astor Roof
WABC CBS NYC
28 Aug 1942
Set 7
1930s Radio
Christopher Columbus
Isham Jones Orchestra
WOR Mutual NYC
13 Mar 1936
Babs + Baby Brown
The Inkspots WEAF NBC Red NYC
9 Aug 1935
Hobo on Fifth Avenue
Isham Jones Orchestra
WOR Mutual NYC
13 Mar 1936
Tiger Rag
The Inkspots
WFIL NBC Phildelphia
12 Jul 1939
Set 8
Modern Jazz
Long Blues
Roy Eldridge
‘Monitor’
Blue Note
NBC Chicago
1957

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