German Tango: Paul Godwin & Leo Monosson - Tränen weint jede Frau so gern, 1929

Paul Godwin Tanz-Orchester mit Refraingesang (Leo Monosson) - Tränen weint jede Frau so gern (Every Woman So Willingly Sheds Tears) Tango (Bronisław Kaper /Fritz Rotter) Grammophon 1929 (Germany)

NOTE: This is a charming old German tango, which however -- and for three reasons! -- would have to be called "Polish".
Firstly, the composer is a Pole: Bronisław KAPER, who was born in Warsaw in 1902. After World War 1 he graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory and through the 1920s he was writing songs for the Warsaw cabarets, including the most renowned Morskie Oko (In 1929, in the revue "Stars of Warsaw" successfully performed was Bronisław Kaper's hit "That's what already sparrows are chirping about"). In the 1930s he began to write music for the powerful German film studio UFA, for which he wrote the colossal blockbuster "Ninon", sung by world-famous Polish tenor Jan Kiepura. Invited after that to Hollywood, Bronisław Kaper took for rest of his life a permanent position with the movie studios - among others, by writing the music for "San Francisco" (1936), "Gaslight" (1944), "Green Dolphin Street" (1947), "Invitation" (1952), "Lili" (1953 - the Oscar winning music), "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962), "The Dirty Dozen"(1967)...

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The second "Polish" reason is Leo MONOSSON - a hugely successful singer, born in the Russian Empire, probably in Moscow, who after the Bolshevik Revolution left Russia and settled in 1918 in Warsaw. In Polish capital city, Monosson got married with Charlota Frank and had two children, yet after his wife's death in the mid 1920s he travelled to Vienna and to Paris and finally, he stayed in Berlin until 1933. His Berlin years made him a star of the hundreds of popular hit recordings he made under his own name, as well as the bunch of pseudonyms - with the most fashionable German dance orchestras of the times. Being fluent in Polish (as well as in several other languages) he also performed in Warsaw, where he recorded for Lonora-Electro a few sides in Polish. The sudden end to his career was the victory of National -Socialist Party in Germany, in 1933. Monosson emigrated to Paris, where he tried to contunue his career (he even recorded in French a couple of sides with Django Reinhardt) yet the demanding French audience had not absorbed his artistically and emotionally different style. Having travelled still farther to the US, he faced even less friendly atmosphere for his German-based skills, therefore he retained professionally as post stamp dealer and never returned to music. Today, many of his recordings are available in You Tube and on CD records, and they are very valued by conoisseurs for the most genuine spirit of the Weimar Republic cabaret atmosphere, which had been preserved in Leo Monosson's renditions.

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Third "Polish" reason, is the bandleader Paul GODWIN (né Pinchas Goldfein) -- a Polish/Jewish violonist and orchestra conductor, who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, in 1902. In the 1920s he graduated at the Warsaw Conservatory in the class of violin and after that he travelled to Germany, where he formed his own dance orchestra. In the Weimar Republic era, the Paul Godwin Jazz-Symphonikern became one of the most successful dance orchestras, belonging to top-notch dance bands in Berlin - which was then the capital of dance-jazz in Europe. Together with such moguls of Europoean jazz age as Dajos Bela, Julian Fuhs, Efim Schachmeister or Marek Weber, Paul Godwin promoted the new jazzy style in music - although he never did betray the classical music. In 1920/30s among the countless recordings of dance music he made for Deutsche Grammophon, many are classical pieces, Godwin recorded with a smaller combo (Paul Godwin Ensamble or Paul Godwin Trio). He also discovered Leo Monosson and several other singers, whom he helped to appear in the music market. Paul Godwin was fortunate to have emigrated from the nazi-Germany just in the right time to be able to establish a new life for himself in a safer place. In Holland he survived WW2 and after the war he continued musical career, but never returned to dance music.