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Jack Skurnick (March 1910 - September 1952) was the founder and director of EMS Recordings
EMS Recordings

EMS Recordings was founded in 1949 by Jack Skurnick in New York City. The company won first prize at the Audio Fair of 1950 for the high quality and interest of its recordings....
 and publisher and editor of the highly regarded music review, Just Records.
Career
Skurnick worked in a music store on West 44th Street near Madison Avenue in New York. The Elaine Record Shop had many loyal customers. Doris Day
Doris Day

Doris Mary Anne von Kappelhoff is a German-American singer, actress, and animal welfare advocate known as Doris Day. Able to sing, dance, and play comedy and dramatic roles, she became one of the biggest box-office stars....
 bought records there, and many of the great classical musicians came in to make purchases and chat with Skurnick.






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Jack Skurnick (March 1910 - September 1952) was the founder and director of EMS Recordings
EMS Recordings

EMS Recordings was founded in 1949 by Jack Skurnick in New York City. The company won first prize at the Audio Fair of 1950 for the high quality and interest of its recordings....
 and publisher and editor of the highly regarded music review, Just Records.

Career


Skurnick worked in a music store on West 44th Street near Madison Avenue in New York. The Elaine Record Shop had many loyal customers. Doris Day
Doris Day

Doris Mary Anne von Kappelhoff is a German-American singer, actress, and animal welfare advocate known as Doris Day. Able to sing, dance, and play comedy and dramatic roles, she became one of the biggest box-office stars....
 bought records there, and many of the great classical musicians came in to make purchases and chat with Skurnick. One of these was Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse

Edgard Victor Achille Charles Var?se, whose name was also spelled Edgar Var?se , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
; another was Safford Cape, director of Pro Musica Antiqua. When Skurnick started his record company, EMS, he named it after the shop. He also convinced Cape and Varese to record with him. EMS was the first label to record Varese.

In the magazine, which became internationally known, Skurnick sought to build respect for music as an art and to raise performance standards. In the EMS recordings, he put these principles into practice. His aim was to record a history of music, with special attention to the lesser known masterpieces, in performances that would be a model of authentic musicianship. He had mapped out plans far into the future when his work was suddenly interrupted.

Interests


Skurnick played the violin.

A movie buff, he wrote a script that he shot himself. Film director Jules Dassin
Jules Dassin

Jules Dassin, born Julius Dassin , was an United States film director. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career....
, then an actor at the Artef, a Jewish theater in New York, appeared in it. It was shown to a small group at a space Skurnick rented in New York. A fan of old movies, Skurnick twice rented a hall in which to show them. Because he was not able to afford to rent the space regularly, he suggested the project to Betty Chamberlain, Director of the Department of Communications at The Museum of Modern Art from 1948-53, who subsequently introduced a more elaborate series of films at MoMA.

Personal


Skurnick was married to the painter, Fay Kleinman
Fay Kleinman

Fay Kleinman is an internationally recognized American painter. She has also been known by her married names, Fay Skurnick, then Fay Levenson....
 for 18 years, and had one daughter, Davida. After her marriage, Davida has been known as Davi Napoleon
Davi Napoleon

Davi Napoleon, aka Davida Skurnick is an United States theater historian and critic. She was educated at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she earned a BA and an MA in psychology while studying playwriting with Kenneth Thorpe Rowe....
. She had two sons, Brian and Randy Napoleon
Randy Napoleon

Randy Napoleon is a jazz guitarist who is a member of The Freddy Cole Quartet, and the leader of the Randy Napoleon Trio. He has toured with Benny Green , the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra , led by John Clayton , Jeff Clayton and Jeff Hamilton , and with Michael Bubl?....
.

Skurnick died of a heart attack in 1952.

External links

  • Safford Cape: A Discography
  • Biography of Charles Rosen, pianist
  • Steophile magazine names the best recordings, including "EDGARD VARÈSE: The Varèse Record Ionisation, Density 21.5, Interpolations from Déserts, Octandre, Intégrales" and notes Frank Zappa
    Frank Zappa

    Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, electric guitarist, record producer, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock music, jazz, electronic music, orchestral, and musique concr?te works....
    's interest in EMS.
  • LA Times documents Jack Skurnick's work and its influence on Frank Zappa.


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