Old Polish Tango: Adam Aston & Henryk Wars Orch. - Zatęsknisz za mną, 1932

Adam ASTON & Orkiestra H. Warsa – Zatęsknisz za mną, Tango [You’ll Miss Me Someday] (Fred Melodyst – Krystjan), Syrena-Electro 1932 (Polish)

NOTE: Fred (Alfred) MELODYST – Polish dance band leader, composer and multi-instrumentalist (viola, banjo, steel saw). Born in Warsaw in 1894 to an old klezmer and musicians family, he studied in the Warsaw Conservatory in class of composition until the outbreak of WW1. After the war, he discontinued studies and began his first performances as member of the salon-orchestra led by his uncle, Ignacy Melodyst. In 1922 he joined as banjoist the dance orchestra led by his friend, saxophonist Zygmunt Karasiński. They performed until 1927 in one of the most elegant Warsaw night restaurants “Oaza”, laying together the foundations for early Polish dance-jazz and promoting in Poland international jazz hits from Europe and USA. After 1927, Fred Melodyst founded his own dance band billed as "Jazz Freda Melodysty", which performed in the most fashionable Café Ziemiańska and in Hotel Bristol in Warsaw. In 1933 the orchestra changed its name to Dansing Towarzyski (The Dance Party) and performed in the cabarets Femina and Banda in Warsaw, in hotel Jaszczurówka in Zakopane and recorded for Columbia and Syrena Electro (some of recordings were made with the participation of internationally famous trumpet player, Ady Rosner). In 1936, Fred Melodyst opened in Warsaw his own night restaurant Arizona, where he performed until 1939. Several months before outbreak of the 2nd WW, Melodyst moved out from Warsaw to Łódź, where he bought the large night bar Casanova – however, he lacked time to begin a broader business there. Mobilised in Sept. 1939, he fought in the Polish Army until its collapse in the end of the Autumnal Campaign of 1939, after which he managed to escape into Lwów, where the Soviet Army and KGB had already started its rule. Having at least saved his life from the hands of Germans - who in that time occupied the western part of Poland including Warsaw – Fred Melodyst stayed in Lwów playing in the Lwów theatre orchestra. In 1942, when the Germans attacked Soviet Russia and when - due to the Mayski-Sikorski pact - the Polish army started to being recreated from the remnants of prewar Polish Army – which in 1939-42 was partly exterminated or imprisoned so by the Soviets, as by Germans – Fred Melodyst, together with the crowds of Polish exiles joined the resurrected Polish army in Kazakshtan and marched with it out from the Soviet Russia, to join the western allies in Persia, Palestine, Northern Africa and finally in Western Europe. All time, he performed for the Polish soldiers in the Army theatre, where he had a happy meeting with his prewar colleagues and artists from Warsaw: bandleaders Henryk Wars, Henryk Gold and Jerzy Petersburski (last two were his cousins from the Melodyst “dynasty”), singers Albert Harris, Adam Aston, Zofia Terne and many others. In 1946, after the demobilisation, Melodyst travelled to Palestine and to France, where he got engagement in the Lido music-hall orchestra. In 1950, after establishment of the state of Israel, Fred Melodyst emigrated there, to perform in Dolphin Bar in Tel Aviw, until his death in 1960.

This absolutely haunting tango is one of many really beautiful compositions by Fred Melodyst, from which, alas, only a handful had become the hits (e.g. tangos “Adieu, kochanko ma!” [Adieu, My Lover], “Żebyś ty wiedziała…” [If You Could Only Know…], “Zawsze” [Always], or English waltz “Przeznaczenie” [Destiny]). Here, this beautiful yet completely forgotten song finds its perfect performer in Adam Aston - one of prewar Warsaw's beloved singers.