Technocratic background of the gig that inspired and shaped a generation - Louis Armstrong in Prague 1965
Abstract
This paper returns to spring 1965 when the famous jazzman - who was at the time already a global pop star - played a legendary concert in socialist Czechoslovakia. Musical stars from the West played very occasionally behind the iron curtain and that's why every event of this kind influenced and shaped a generation. Louis Armstrong in Prague was one of the very first ones. But how could this concert even happen? What kind of deals occurred between the western producers and the Czechoslovak state bureaucracy? What was "behind the stage"?
Most of the works that described spreading of western pop music behind the iron curtain in the 60s focused on perception of the western music ("imaginary west" by A. Yurchak), its subversive political role or esthetical inspirations. There was also quite a lot written about Radio Luxembourg and DIY ways of recording and other technical aspects. This paper wants to change the perspective and focus on the technocratic background of the famous concert in line with the recently developed historiography of post-stalinist manager class (Sommer, Spurný, Kopeček).
The main sources come from archives of Czechoslovak secrete police (StB) that monitored the behaviour of both groups of managers. From those secret documents we can reconstruct a picture of western producers behaving like skilful predators of the musical market and on the other side unexperienced managers of Czechoslovak state agency Pragokoncert trying to rebuild the post-stalinist public space. And behind their back the third player in the game - secret police trying to move things the way they wanted. It took couple of dramatic meetings before Louis Armstrong could come, play and shape a generation.