Alternate song titles during WWII

billyshakes

Yes it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Kids_%281993_film%29

scot

I always liked that book a lot. Mike Zwerin, like a lot of people and that includes me, had many erroneous notions about jazz during the war. When he turned up evidence to the contrary, instead of turning away as would happen today, he dug deeper to get at the truth. On page 11-12 we find these sentences: "Elderly European jazz musicians of many nationalities sighed with pleasure remembering World War II - their youth, all the gigs they could handle, no American competition, everyone loved jazz. 'It was the golden Age', I kept hearing, and 'Those were such wonderful days. Please don't misunderstand, but...". Jazz wasn't generally prohibited by the occupation forces in France and Benelux.

This is an especially complex and nuanced subject - in this world, things are not always what we think they should be. But we only need to look at Django's discography to see how busy he was in Paris all through the war. Was it dangerous in Paris for musicians? Of course - it was dangerous for everyone. It was a very dangerous place in all sorts of ways. But nearly all of them survived.

Michael Kater's book "Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of nazi Germany", Mike Danzi's book "An American Musician in Germany" (he was there from 1925 until late 1939), and the documentary film "Chantons Sous l'Occupation" are excellent resources if you are interested in this kind of thing.

Violinist Helmut Zacharias made some interesting swing recordings in Germany during the war, and Italian violinist and tenor saxman Tullio Mobiglia had a successful jazz orchestra in Germany from 1941-43. His guitarist Alfio Grasso was pretty good, too. And there were more.

I have read elsewhere that the song titles were not changed to deceive the occupying authority (there actually wasn't any need for that), but was just typical of French musicians playing word games which they did love to do. See "L'Argot des Musicians" by M. Juteau et al, a witty little book.