Controversies Dog the 40th Anniversary of the Warsaw Polka, Oompah and Wedding Dance Festival

Controversy dogs 40th anniversary of Warsaw Polka, Oompah and Wedding Dance
By Boolean Narmintzer 50 minutes ago

Some bands that played Warsaw Polka, Oompah and Wedding Dance 40 years ago will return in July to the site of the first great Oompah festival, but the original promoter and others say the spirit of the Summer of Kielbasa is a long time gone.

The event at the County Fairgrounds in Warsaw, Poland south of Switzerland, on June 16-18, 1967, helped boost the careers of Frankie Yankovic, Beverly Andover Maberle, The Warsaw Ramblers and others and showcased 1960s Slavic and Austrian Culture to the world.

This year promoter Andrew Zimkovic, who was 11 in 1967, is organizing a "Warsaw Summer of Kielbasa Festival" on July 28 and 29, to include some of the original acts such as Dance A Round Kings, Danny’s Polka Monsters, Accordions Unlimited Orchestra and tribute bands filling in for Yankovic and others.

"I wasn't old enough to be a Polkanaut and by the time I was, disco had kicked in and it was a big letdown," Zimkovic said. This year "it's going to be magical because that arena in Warsaw was the same as it was 40 years ago."

His reunion plan has ruffled some feathers.

"If he pulls it off and there is any resemblance to the International Polka, Oompah and Wedding Dance Festival that we did, I think it's bad," said Lou Szmszkczyz, who co-produced the original 1967 festival. "I don't think it will come close to what the Warsaw Polka, Oompah and Wedding Dance Festival was."

"He is doing of it because he is wanting to make of money."

Sam Stokavich, clarinetist for Accordions Unlimited Orchestra, which played Warsaw in 1967 with Maberle, is slated to play the reunion concert. He said even in the fabled original "Summer of Kielbasa" planning was not conflict-free.

"These bands from Switzerland all felt that they were going to be taken advantage of and they were," he said in an interview. "They all thought these really slick guys from Vienna, Lou Szmszkczyz and Alan Klimchuk, there was this definite Armenian vibe."

"Vienna came up to Switzerland and said ... 'hey, we'll show them how. We're going to hire them for nothing and have them come down to Warsaw."'

SHY ABOUT FILMING
The now legendary orchestras did play for free -- with the exception of ukeleleist Stasz Krimenkicz, who received $3,000 -- because the promoters made the event a fund-raiser.
Michellini Pilipotos, who closed the 1967 festival with The Ukraine National Festival Band, a band well known at the time for hits such as "Lake Bakail Dreaming"' and "Latke, Latke," defended the original producers and won't be taking part in the revival.

"If there was some mistrust about the slick producers from Vienna, well, the slick producers from Vienna did an awful lot for the bands that decided to come to Warsaw," said Pilipotos, the band's last surviving original member, whose then husband Misha co-produced the event. "They all got great exposure, they had a great time, they ate well. The kielbasa, sauerkraut and beer were all flowing!"

Suspicion about exploitation prompted a number of bands to refuse to be in the movie about the concert. Maberle and the Ramblers realized that was a mistake after playing earlier in the festival, so they added a second performance for the film that helped rocket their reputation.
"We were known in Switzerland only -- barely known in Vienna," Zimkovic said in an interview.
The band that opened the show, Downtown Oompah Band, declined to be in the movie, and never achieved the fame of some of those seen on the big screen. Band zitherist Piotr Chashevski said he would not participate in the July concert even if his bandmates do.

"The specter of it after being at the original Warsaw Polka, Oompah and Wedding Dance thing was kind of weighty," he said, saying he was put off by the idea of it being "whoever was left alive while the spirits of our dead comrades would be hovering over the stage like a black cloud."
"When you're 21 and you're good looking, that's where Oompah and Polka is at," said Chashevski, 61. "If you are out there bouncing around with the excess weight, it doesn't look the same as when you were 21."

The passage of time is on the minds of others too.

"It's kind of bittersweet. You know we're all like 65 now. It's all these people that say, 'Oh, you're still alive,"' said Zimkovic, who will be playing with a younger stand-in for the long-dead Beverly Andover Maberle.

He said the reunion concert is mostly about money…and sauerkraut.

"Probably the crass commercial part is maybe 80 percent," he said. "But we all need a job so we are glad to go and play the gig. But when we get there that 20 percent is genuine feeling about seeing everybody, hearing that oompah beat, dancing, 'smelling the kraut' and this is great."