Giorgio Gomelsky

Giorgio Gomelsky was born 28 February 1934 in Tiflis, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union (today's Tbilisi, Georgia). He was a Georgian movie maker, impresario, music manager, songwriter (as Oscar Rasputin) and music producer. He grew up in Soviet Union, Syria, Egypt and - since 1944 - Switzerland, where his father had trained to become an MD. Aged 10 he discovered jazz while living in a still Nazi occupied Italy, and after WWII, black GIs gave him his first jazz "education". Since his mother was a hat designer from Monte Carlo (and her father had worked in the casinos), he learned English from her and became an anglophile. In the late 50s he felt the urge to become a filmmaker in order to document the birth of the British jazz scene, and he moved to the UK. Soon he came in contact with people like Chris Barber, already a star, Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, Lonnie Donegan, The Yardbirds and the fledgling The Rolling Stones. In 1978, he relocated to New York and tried to open up a market for European, progressive rock acts that he'd been "dealing" with, like Gong, The Plastic People Of The Universe, Soft Machine and Magma (6). From then on, until the 2010's, he ran the rehearsal and recording studio Blue Door near Chelsea. He died of cancer 13 January 2016, in NYC, New York, USA.