Tuesday, March 25, 2008

There is no way one can grow two heads, really.

I am blogging my mind away since 2003, and I always did it in my native language -- that is, in Russian -- because I could not find how I would post entries in another language within that same Russian blog. It's on Livejournal, where Russian community is very strong -- and apparently doesn't give a sheeshkebab if somebody except themselves is getting what they are writing. Well, it looks like it's time to start blogging in another tongue.

So, here's what I have to admit for today:
1. Just met the management at a new Moscow jazz club. Looks like jazz clubs are frantically reproducing themselves -- the pompous old JVL Jazz Club on Novoslobodskaya street closed a few months ago, and so did the tiny Kurs in the 5th floor of Meyerhold Theatre Center on that same street; and now a new one, called simple Ray, opens on Novoslobodskaya (just a few blocks uptown.) People who run it say they want to book more young musicians, and to support the young scene, and to bring new audiences, and to establish jazz matinees for kids on Sundays, and they also say they feel it's their social responsibility not to make their new venue another trendy upscale place, but establish a young musicians' and listeners' community around it instead. We'll see. Soundss very good, but what would they sound like when it'll come to the rent rise (and it definitely will, as life in Moscow is not very likely going to be any cheaper.) I said rise? Rent is rocketing around town. Well, time will tell.

2. Tonight we are going to see my good NYC friend Misha Tsiganov on piano in Hendrik Meurkens Samba Jazz Project at Moscow's Union of Composers. It's funny, I have reviewed the guy's album a year ago, and met him in NYC so many times, but never heard him live. Time to fix that.

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