Eddie Rosner was a native Berliner, a jazz virtuoso of pre-war Europe, the first veritable showman in the USSR, where his name and music were banned twice – in the late 40s, when he was sent to the labour camps for 7 years, and in the early 70s – for the second time.

Even during his lifetime, the musician was a legend. His contemporaries remember him as an idol of snappy dressers and a hit with the ladies, a tireless storyteller and a man with a hard-nosed man with hazardous character, the darling of fortune and an eternal maverick.

Eddie (born Adolf Eduard) was born on 26 May 1910 in Berlin. He graduated from a music school and a conservatoire specializing in violin. His uncle advised him to choose the trumpet as his second instrument during his senior year. Eddie obeyed and soon realised that it was decisive of his fate. Already in 1928, the young man was invited to be the first trumpet player in Hamburg, in the orchestra of Marek Weber. Then he joined the popular jazz band ‘Vaintraub Cynkopaitors’ – an authentic big band playing jazz in the American style.

When it became a deadly threat to stay in Germany and in the territory of Poland occupied by Germany, Rosner managed to transport to the Soviet Union not only his family, but also most of the musicians of the orchestra.

Soon, at the invitation of the head of the BSSR Panteleimon Ponomarenko (a fan of jazz music), Eddie Rosner moved to Minsk, where he headed the State Jazz Orchestra of the BSSR. The band played the most fashionable tunes of those years. And the all-Union success did not take too long. The orchestra even received a special train for touring, which practically became a home for the musicians.
Only one recorded composition has survived to our time: jazz variations on the themes of waltz “Tales of the Vienna Woods” by Strauss, made for the film “Concert Waltz”.

During the Great Patriotic War the orchestra performed a lot for the soldiers of the Soviet army, among the personal awards of Rosner was the medal ‘For the Liberation of Warsaw’, in 1944, he received the title of Honoured Artist of the Belarusian USSR.
After the war was over, the career of Eddie Rosner was interrupted by his arrest and eight-year imprisonment in Gulag.

After his release from prison, Eddie Rosner set up his own orchestra in Moscow. The orchestra was financed and given a base for rehearsals. Thus began a new page in the life of the musician, who became a popular Soviet showman, head of the pop orchestra, created under Moscow Variety Show (MosEstrada). In 1956, Rosner and his orchestra starred in the film comedy “Carnival Night”.

On the sidelines of the orchestra, processes were taking place that were preparing the ground for the explosion that would take place in the USSR in the 60s. It was a school of jazz mastery. Suffice it to say that such musicians as Vadim Ludvikovsky, Yury Saulsky, Vladimir Terletsky and Alexei Mazhukov passed through the orchestra of Eddie Rosner. A dangerous situation arose for Rosner: the new orchestra, a magnificent jazz of the most modern orientation, did not fit into the established image of the Soviet musical variety, it was too exclusive.

In 1971, RosKonzert forced Rosner to retire. In early 1973, the musician left the USSR for good and settled in West Berlin. He tried to lay creative plans. The Berlin Jewish community was going to help him, Duke Ellington, the government of the FRG.... But the trouble was that the maestro was too tired, his health was badly deteriorating. In 1976, Eddie Rosner passed away.

Documentary of Pierre-Henri Salfaty about Eddie Rosner, “Le Jazzman Du Goulag” (The Jazzman from the Gulag), won an Emmy Award in the Documentary Film category.

Musical compilation dedicated to the 115^th birth jubilee of Eddie Rosner is posted in the museum Phonotheque.