Born the same year as Dmitri Shostakovich, Alexander Tsfasman carved a unique path in Soviet music—as one of the country’s foremost jazz artists and advocates. A classical pianist by training, he began dabbling in jazz in the 1920s while studying at the Moscow Conservatory under pedagogue Felix Blumenfeld, who also taught Vladimir Horowitz. Tsfasman would miraculously thrive under Stalin, despite his public embrace of American culture and praise for jazz luminaries such as Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Waller, and George Gershwin. He even adopted the nickname “Bob.” Among Tsfasman’s accomplishments were the first jazz recording by a Russian artist, the first appearances on the radio and in film by a jazz artist in the country, and the premiere performances of Rhapsody in Blue in the USSR.

The Suite showcases Gershwin’s influence on Tsfasman mixed with a dose of Russian romanticism à la Rachmaninoff and a touch of stride piano courtesy of Fats Waller. It begins with cascading triplets, lightly skipping down the keyboard, eliciting the movement’s title: “Snowflakes.” Their playful descent is interrupted by a dreamy interlude before being swept away as if by the wind. The middle movements feature a melting lyrical waltz with a whiff of yearning, followed by a lively polka. The aptly named finale, “Fast Movement,” bursts out of the gates and gallops ahead lickety-split, with finger-twisting acrobatics and, in a nod to Gershwin, syncopated octaves.

In the years following World War II, as Stalin sought to purge Soviet music of Western influences and so-called “formalism,” Tsfasman fell out of favor and his orchestra disbanded. His reputation was somewhat rehabilitated after Stalin’s death in 1953, and he was allowed to travel for the first time outside of the USSR. But the Jazz Suite, written in 1945, shows no trace of the cynicism or darkness of that later time; it’s a rollicking party piece packed with pianistic pyrotechnics.

—Amanda Angel