When our jazz band toured communist Romania in 1974, we played both anthems over 20 times all over their country, as did all the musical groups that toured. As it turned out, Romania had the most vicious regime of the eastern bloc.
Kim Cheol-woong, a North Korean pianist who defected to South Korea in 2002 because of the lack of musical freedom, said last week that regular citizens in the North were prohibited from listening to or playing foreign music produced after 1900.Who knows, maybe they will start to allow jazz music now too.