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This is a collection of music for folk dancing that has long been out of print. Most of it consists of 78RPM transcriptions. Many of the vinyl recordings are actually transcribed from older 78s. From the soulful Macedonian, happy-happy Croatian, to the furious Russian-Ukranian melodies this music makes wonderful listening, but most importantly it demands to be danced. The 78RPM recordings often have a vigor and life unsurpassed by modern recordings. This is because they could not edit them, and so they had to record them in a complete take. This helped give the music an edge because the musicians were under pressure similat to that in a live performance.
Some of the recording artists could not be identified because they were originally archived on open reel without proper identification, and many recordings were made by anonymous folk ensembles. There are biographies of many artists already on the web. The recordings often also have the last name of the researcher who taught the dance.
A little history for some of the dances should be mentioned because it is not available elsewhere. The Dale Kornienko recordings were made by the owner of a record shop in Manhattan called Kismet according to Dick Crum. They have great energy and are appreciated by many folk dance groups.
A Ja Tzo Saritsa is the designated name on a recording which does not match the actual music. The dance choreographer was a Russian who mistakenly thought he hear the word 'saritsa' which would be female tsar. He did not speak either Czech or Slovak dialects, and he had an old scratchy 78. So he made up a fancifal pantomime dance straight out of the Moscow school of choreography, which is fun to do, but bears little resemblence to any known folk dances. The name he gave the dance has been retained. This information was also obtained from the late Dick Crum, one of the greates folk dance historians and teachers.
This collection is intended to be used by folk dance groups for practice.