Special: Tribute to Lubomír Dorůžka
Lubomír Dorůžka, who sadly died on Monday at the age of 89, was one of the all-time great Czech music writers. He started out during WWII, producing a clandestine magazine on his greatest passion, jazz, a genre that was also later frowned upon by the Communists. However, in the relatively liberal 1960s Mr. Dorůžka was able to edit music magazines and play a very active role in international jazz organisations. What’s more, he was also a renowned translator of American and British authors – and as a young man did many translations with his lifelong friend, the novelist Josef Škvorecký.
"Oh yes, partly, certainly. But I was always interested in literature all the same. I translated especially books by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and together with Josef Škvorecký we did ‘A Fable’ by William Faulkner - that was really a piece of work, with sentences which run over one page, and a lot of terms and things that we didn't know much about. Škvorecký and I did a lot of things like that at the time."
You were a kind of tandem team? You translated together?
"Yes, in quite a funny way, because we got one copy only and sometimes we did such barbaric acts, really, just cutting a book into three or four parts. Each of us took one part, 50 pages or so, did his own translation, and passed it to the partner, who worked on it late on, and so on. So the book was really cut into sections of 50 pages, but we managed somehow."
As translators could you consult with anybody? Say, if you came across a word you that didn't know, how could you find out what it meant?
"That was very difficult, especially if it had some historical background. You really had to find somebody who lived at that time, and who worked in that field. With Faulkner's ‘A Fable’ we were lucky enough to find a pilot who flew those machines in the First World War, and he helped us with things that we probably couldn't have solved any other way.
"Other translations were sometimes more trouble. Our colleagues at [state publishing house] Odeon translated something which dealt with the Stock Exchange in the 1930s. There were a lot of technical terms which they didn't understand. And finally they found a man who had been employed at the Prague Stock Exchange at that time.
Tell us about your relationship with Josef Škvorecký, the writer and of course publisher who started 68 Publishers when he left for Canada. When did you first meet?
"We met at the Philosophical Faculty. We both attended a seminar on American literature. That was in 1946, when the first stipendists who went to America had already returned. I had a paper on Fitzgerald, Škvorecký on Hemmingway. In a discussion, one of these students who had returned from the U.S. just said, in Czech, Já myslím, že ty papery byli velmi zajímavé [I think the papers are very interesting] - just to show he had been in America and he knew what a paper was!"
You and Škvorecký shared a love of jazz?
"Oh yes, certainly. I tried to finish my studies with a doctor's degree, and I didn't even go for my last document which enabled me to teach, to become a teacher. Because teachers were at gymnaziums, at high schools, were sent out of Prague. Škvorecký was sent out of Prague and he spent a few years under very difficult conditions in Northern Bohemia.
"Then there was a place at the state publishing house of literature and music, where I was employed. I wrote what was at the time necessary, a sort of recommendation, so he came to Prague and he got the post, where he was at the centre of literary life at that time."
How did you too manage to stay in contact during the years when was in North America [before 1989]?
And he sent you his drafts of novels?
"Yes, certainly. He also sent me the books that they published in Toronto. They were paperbacks, so the only thing I could do was to rip off the cover and replace it with some cover of an innocent American detective story or story crime or something like that. I put it into my baggage and I was lucky enough that the officers weren't so interested in crime stories."
You mentioned travelling for Supraphon - did you get to meet any of your jazz heroes on your travels?
"Oh yes. But it wasn't only for Supraphon that I was travelling. In 1968 we founded the first European Jazz Federation, then the International Jazz Federation, which became a member of UNESCO. UNESCO was an organisation that was recognised by the government here, so that got me to a lot of festivals.
"In 1975, right on my birthday in March, I went to a concert in Bergamo where Gerry Mulligan played. After the concert we sat in a cafe or wine bar and got to talking. After some time, he asked me where exactly I came from. I told him Czechoslovakia.
This was The Cowards by Škvorecký.
"Yes, it was The Cowards."
Did many international jazz stars come here? I know for instance Louis Armstrong played here at Lucerna [in 1965].
"Yes, Louis Armstrong played here, nine concerts, which was quite unusual - he never stayed as long in a city. And Lucerna was packed all the time. I was serving as his guide practically for those 10 days.
"We went to Prague Castle, too, we visited a gallery there with pictures of all the Czech kings and counts and nobility. There was a girl guide who spoke decent English and she explained everything to him, and all the names. So he turned to me and said, she knows 'em all! [laughs] Then it went on and on, and there were a lot of other names that he didn't know, of course. And he turned to me again and said, why the hell don't they have George Washington here?! [laughs]"
What was he like? His image was as a real gentleman.
"Certainly. But of course all the people that came here were rather cautious. Because these were the socialist, the communist countries, and probably they were warned by their managers or somebody. He was very polite and tried to please everybody, but you could see that he was keeping on his guard."
You're 88 years old now, but your most recent book came out only six months ago. Are you still working?
One final question. You've been listening to jazz for I guess 70 years, more - have you changed as a listener in that period? Do you listen differently?
"Well, just because I was in touch with music, jazz, with the way it's changed I was trying to keep in contact with music all the time. Here I differ from very many of my contemporaries, because for them jazz was the music of their youth. That was swing, and partly perhaps bebop. But they don't go on in their tastes any further than that. As I was doing these things professionally, I had to keep in touch with them, and some of the things that are happening now I like very much.
"And besides, I have it at home. I have a grandson who is the first in our family who really plays music professionally. So of course I am in touch with what is happening."
