Russian Jazz Notes

Jazz.Ru #6/7-2011

2011-12-19T13:39:00.000+04:00

On the cover (photo by Pavel Korbout): reeds master Ken Vandermark, with an extensive interview by Grigory Durnovo, and Martian Chronicles from Ken Vandermark - Paal Nilseen-Love Duo performances in Russia.
St.Petersburg-based jazz historian, critic, radio presenter, festival producer, Russia's favorite on-stage festival host and book author, Vladimir Feyertag, turns 80; would you believe that? - in a massive interview, by Anna Filipieva.
Soviet jazz pioneer, pianist, composer, and bandleader Alexander Tsfasman would be 105 in December; a life's story synonymous with Soviet Jazz history.
Ladislav "Laczy" Olah @100: from Hungary non-stop to Gulag, and on to the Soviet jazz Hall of Fame - the story of the most prominent drummer in early Russian jazz, by Andrei Solovyov.
Festivals in review: SibJazzFest in Novosibirsk, Russia (by Kim Voloshin); Jazz in Kiev, Ukraine (by Grigory Durnovo, including an interview with Carla Bley and Steve Swallow); EDGEFEST in Ann Arbor, MI (by Roman Stolyar); and Belgrade Jazz Festival, Serbia (by Tanya Balakyrska).
Saxophonist Igor Butman celebrates his 50th birthday at the 6,000-seat Kremlin Palace Theater in Moscow: the house sold out as the American jazz stars sat in.
The Secret of His Playing: R.I.P. drummer Paul Motian (1931-2011).
Jazz Province on the move: Russia's only moving jazz festival still on the road, after 15 years.
No Listeners In Your Home Country? - producer and journalist Yuri Lnogradski replies to a controversial statement by pianist Eugene Sivtsov from the previous Jazz.Ru issue.
Russian Real Book: a theme by bassist Vitaly Solomonov (currently with Igor Butman Big Band and quartet)
...and much more!

On newsstands from December 24, 2011

Jazz.Ru #4/5-2011

2011-11-05T15:58:00.000+04:00

On the cover (photo by Pavel Korbout): pianist Leszek Mozdzer, The Face of Polish Jazz. Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk on the mighty Enisei river re-launches local jazz festival with 30 years of history, this year under the new name: EniJazz. 14th Jazz at the Hermitage Garden festival opened Moscow's 89th jazz concert season. Sounds of Gibraltar Strait: Alex Belyaev reviews the TANJAzz festival in Tangiers, Morocco. Guitarist Russsel Malone interviewed in Moscow. The first documentary about Valentin Parnakh, the pioneer of Russian jazz, released. Why going to America? - Pyotr Gazarov interviews several young Russian jazz musicians about their experience in the U.S.; saxophonist Nikolay Moiseenko reflects on his own American years; Manhattan School of Music's Jazz Program chair, Justin DiCioccio, interviewed. "Pops. The Life of Louis Armstrong": we present the forthcoming Russian translation of Terry Teachout's book. Bassist Vladimir Volkov interviewed. In Memoriam: arranger Pete Rugolo. The first Vladimir Rezitsky Festival in Archangelsk celebrates the memory and legacy of the late saxophonist, ten years after his untimely passing. Russian Jazz Research Center unveils its first acquisitions. Saxophonist Igor Butman's theme in our Russian Real Book section marks the famed Russia musician's 50th birthday... and much more!

Ganelin Live in Moscow

2011-09-21T01:10:00.002+04:00

Ganelin Trio was the first Soviet (actually, Lithuanian) jazz group to tour the U.S. in 1986. Not that many in the U.S. were getting them at the time, as they were clearly not emulating American jazz, but searching for their own thing instead, mostly in the realms of free improvisation on the verge of jazz and modern classical music.
Time passed, and the three musicians went in their own directions: drummer Vladimir Tarasov stayed in Vilnius, Lithuania, after 1991, and went into sound installations and international collaborations; reedist Vladimir Chekasin was more interested in happenings and theatralization of music, and ran a series of successful monthly music/happening extravaganzas at Moscow's House of Artists; and pianist Viacheslav (Slava) Ganelin moved to Jerusalem, where he taught improvisation at two music schools, composed to his soul's content, and ran a small annual festival in the Holy City, Jerusalem Jazz Globus (next time, late November, 2012.)
Two days ago he made a very rare solo improv appearance in Moscow, and I filmed his massive, 22-minutes-long improvisation at the Jewish Culture Center in Russian capital.

Herman Lukianov Celebrates His 75th Birthday

2011-09-17T14:00:00.002+04:00

75 Years of Independence, stated the caption on the cover of this year's #3 Jazz.Ru magazine on top of Herman Lukianov's portrait. Herman, primarily a composer, arranger, and music thinker, was one of the leading forces in Russian jazz in the 1960s, when he studied composition at the Moscow State Conservatory with none other than Aram Khachaturian, and played trumpet in jazz bands of the era; he kept his leading positions in the 1970s when he switched to flugelhorn; he led his KADANS (Russian abbreviation for Chamber Jazz Ensemble, and, by a coincidence - Herman is fond of such coincedences! - an obsolete old Russian word for both cadence and cadenza) thoroughout the 1980s and was the first Russian jazz musician to perform at the famous North Sea Jazz festival in the Netherlands; after a decade of relative oscurity in the 1990s he reinvented his KADANS (first under the title of KADANS Millenium, after which he reverted to the old two-syllable name) in 2000 and continues to work hard ever since, now on a rarest of his horns - the massive, low-pitched tenor horn, which he assembled by his own hands using an old trombone bell and an unusial mouthpiece of Herman's own design and production. Everybody in his current band is at least twice his junior, and all of them, diametrally differently aspired as they are, share respect and passion for Lukianov's tricky, tight, driving music, which often sounds modernistic and vintage at the same time. To make the long story shor, ladies and gentleman,would you welcome to the stage Mr. Herman Lukianov and his KADANS!Herman Lukianov and his KADANS perform Lukianov's "Summertime Transition" during the September 14, 2011 celebration of Herman's 75th birthday at the ArteFAQ club, Moscow, Russia (Herman Lukianov - tenor horn, Alexey Kruglov - as, Anton Zaletayev - ts, Alexey Becker - p, Makar Novikov - b, Alex Zinger - dr)

Published with artists' permission

Here's one more, for good measure ("Dizzy With Success" - Herman is very fond of unusual titles: this one, which became a proverb in Russian, is also a title of one of Joseph Stalin's newspaper articles from the early 1930s, which Russian intelligentsia learned to use in an ironic, figurative manner.)

New Sounds from St.Petersburg

2011-09-08T13:08:00.001+04:00

We travelled to the Nortwestern Russia recently, first to St.Petersburg (500 mi. NW from Moscow) and then to the ancient town of Tikhvin, another 120 mi. East from St.Petersburg. September in Tikhvin, local jazz festival (currently in its 12th edition,) took place in those two cities on October 2 and 3. Here's eight minuites of tense improv drama at the festival opening (JFC Jazz Club, St.Petersburg, October 2, 2011): Moscow-based reedist Alexey Kruglov, here on tenor (while his main axe is the alto,) St.Petersburg-based pianist Alexey Lapin, and drummer Oleg Yudanov from Arkhangelsk compose a dense improv trialogue while they unfold it in front of delighted audience (the tiny JFC was crowded to its almost full capacity.)

Jazz.Ru #3-2011: Happy Birthday Herman!

2011-08-23T15:30:00.001+04:00

Today is the 75th birthday of Herman Lukianov, the Man With A Horn (be that a trumpet, a flugelhorn, or, more lately, a tenor horn,) the most talked-of Russian jazz musician in the 1960s and 1970s, still unbent, original, and creative.
And today we release Jazz.Ru #3-2011, with a picture of Lukianov on the cover (by Pavel Korbut,) and a proud title:

HERMAN LUKIANOV, 75 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

Here's a piece of Herman's music, performed by Herman's recent group, which is - as usual - called KADANS (Russian abbreviation for Chamber Jazz Ensemble, and, coincidentally, an obscure, 19th century Russian word for "cadence"). It's a shame I recorded that using my old camera - if only I had my current Lumix FZ100, the overall quality would be much better.

Leonid Pereverzev. An Offering To Ellington, And Other Texts On Jazz

2011-08-13T13:39:00.001+04:00

I am proud to announce that St.Petersburg-based Planet Music publishing company just published a collection of groundbreaking works on jazz in Russian language by Leonid Pereverzev (1930-2006,) the pioneer of Russian jazz research and jazz musicology, titled "An Offering To Ellington, And Other Texts On Jazz".
The texts for the book were collected and edited by Cyril Moshkow (this writer.)
Here is the book cover:

The book is available for online purchase from the publisher's website (not sure they deliver internationally, though; we would have to wait until the book appears in bigger online stores.)
More details in my earlier post.
A brief exceprt from the book in English.

Jazz.Ru #2-2011

2011-08-11T20:36:00.001+04:00

(cover clickable)

On the cover (photo by Pavel Korbout): Chick Corea Turns 70: the great pianist's memorable appearance in Moscow with Gary Burton. Jazz April in Ufa: Bashkortostan Republic, member of the Russian Federation, is first in Russia to join the JAM (Jazz Appreciation Month). Tallinn Music Week: in the kitchen - Yuri Lnogradski on the Estonian capital's jazz showcase, and how it worked. The Vintskevich Phenomenon: Leonid Vintskevich, acclaimed pianist/composer and the artistic director for Jazz Province, Central Russia's premier moving festival, in an extensive interview by Anna Filipieva. Vladimir Tolkachov, The Hard Man: the life story of Siberia's famous bandleader, as told by himself on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Bremen and the musicians: jazzahead! showcase in Germany is gaining momentum, as observed by Gregory Durnovo. The Dutch Recipe: European jazz model with its highs and lows, as viewed during the Gateway to Dutch Jazz showcase in Amersfoort, Netherlands... and much more!

Norwegian Jazz Star of 2030

2011-07-30T13:01:00.000+04:00

Who knows - maybe it was the next Jan Garbarek playing in public for the first time in his life whom I saw briefly while hurrying from one big name concert to another along the busy Jazz festival street in Molde, Norway last week?

From Italy, With Jazz

2011-07-09T17:09:00.000+04:00

My jazz journalism job has a flip side: I not only write about Russian jazz for those outside Russia; I also write about jazz elsewhere for those inside my country. This time I traveled to Italy to cover the Bari in Jazz festival in Apulia, warm agricultural region near the heel of the Italia's boot. For those who read Russian, here's my detailed review of the festival; for those who don't, there's a lot of pictures and videos inside the story.

New Blood

2011-06-16T16:13:00.001+04:00

In this band, only the drummer, Yakov Okun (who is also one of Russia's best jazz pianists, by the way,) is older than 30; others are under 25. The leader, alto sax player Pyotr Gazarov, appears again on Moscow's small but busy jazz scene after a few years at the New School University in New York City (from where he graduated about a month ago.) In an intriguing co-op effort with singer Alina Rostotskaya (a bandleader in her own right,) and with solid support from Okun and the stout bassist Sergei Korchagin, last night Pyotr performed at an unlikely venue - Produkty, new Italian eatery inside the Red October, ex-chocolate factory in downtown Moscow converted into a conglomerate of galleries, restaurants, and clubs. Here's their rendition of Gershwin's "The Man I Love."

More Russian jazz videos

Easter Gift

2011-04-24T19:45:00.004+04:00

Happy Easter! Hristos Voskrese!

Here's the long-delayed JAZZ.RU #1-2011 (yes, the financial crisis, obviously past in the West, had finally hit us hard, but we are not going to give up, no sir, not while we are alive ;-)

(cover clickable)

On the cover (photo by Gulnara Khamatova): Joshua Redman at the Triumph of Jazz festival in Moscow, Russia, 2011 (complete festival review inside). Tampere Jazz Happening: the revolution is going on, as reported by Cyril Moshkow. Education: ISIM (International Society for Improvised Music) 5th conference, viewed by Roman Stolyar. Grammy Awards 2011: Esperanza Spalding's unexpected triumph, and the complete list of jazz winners. Jazz environment: Norway's Jazzkirken (Jazz Church), in an intense first-hand analysis by Yuri Lnogradski. In Memoriam: Dr. Billy Taylor (1921-2010); Dr. Billy Taylor's Mysterious Sounds session with Larry Appelbaum. Russian Jazz History:
Sergey Belichenko unveils funny and heroic in his memoirs on 1960s jazz movement in Siberia. Portrait: Russian-German trumpet player Igor Shirokov - a life of a jazz champion. In Memoriam: pianist George Shearing (1919-2011)... and much more!

Russia, and Where I've Been There

2011-04-11T16:54:00.002+04:00

Russia is huge. It is the biggest country on the planet. No surprise that most Russians only see a tiny part of their own country during their lives.
I travel a lot inside the country; there's always a jazz festival somewhere in Russia. Earlier today I returned to Moscow from the city of Ufa, the capital of the Bashkortostan Republic. Located in the southern part of the Ural Mountains region, on the great divide where Western Asia meets Eastern Europe, Bashkortostan is one of the largest national autonomies in Russian Federation, populated mostly by Bashkirs, a Turkic-speaking nation who historically were a people of proud and stout steppes-riding horsemen, still partly nomadic only a few generations ago.
Ufa has a tradition of 40 years of jazz education, a great history of good jazz festivals, and even the cultural advisor of the new Bashkortostan president (elected last year) is a jazz musician, Moscow-based saxophonist Oleg Kireyev, originally from Ufa. My partner, Anna Filipieva, and I attended a jazz education conference held at the Ufa State Academy of Arts. We participated in a four-hours discussion on jazz education, where only a part of the audience was present in person (at the superb Ufa City Jazz Club) while many questions were asked by people online (via text chat or by voice via Skype).

During the discussion, L to R: Anna Filipieva, Jazz.Ru Magazine; Roman Stolyar, Novosibirsk Music College; Alisa Sabirova, Ufa State Academy of Arts

The next day, Anna and I gave a clinic in music journalism at the Academy of the Arts for Ufa journalists who cover music for local media. We were surprised to see more than 20 colleagues in the audience, to find out that not only younger journalist showed up (but also their well-established peers, including the editor-in-chief of the local classical music magazine,) and to hear some really sharp and intelligent questions. I hope we answered most of then, and what we have to share with them from Anna's seven years as a music journalist, and twenty-three years that this writer has under his belt (fourteen as a magazine editor,) was useful for them.

I have to add that the Ufa Jazz Education Conference was labeled by its organizers as a Jazz Appreciation Month event, the first-ever event in Russia to do so. We would like to thank the organizers, Academy's Jazz department dean Azamat Khasanshin and Alisa Sabirova (who is working on her doctorate thesis at the Jazz department,) for their endless dedication and resourcefulness!

By returning home from Bashkortostan, I have eventually completed my visit to the 29th member territory of the Russian Federation in my life (out of 87 existing.) Geografically, it makes exaclty one third of Russia that I've seen, from the tiny Kaliningrad exclave in the extreme West (sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland,) to the Buryat Republic in Southern Siberia, along the Lake Baikal, in the mid-Eastern part of the country. A bit of proportions: it takes two hours of a commercial jet flight to get to Ufa from Moscow (900 miles,) and five hours of flight - from Moscow to the Buryat Republic, which is barely halfway across the country!

New York Russians in Jazz

2011-03-25T17:41:00.002+03:00

It must be tough to perform in your hometown, in front of your parents and high school friends, after you studied in Moscow for 5 years and lived in New York City for another 20.
And that is exactly what happened to Alex Sipiagin, New York-based trumpet player, on March 20, when he performed in his hometown of Yaroslavl, Russia with Manhattan Time Quintet.

Manhattan Time Quintet: trumpet player Alex Sipiagin, pianist Misha Tsiganov, trombonist Andy Hunter, bassist Boris Kozlov, and drummer Gene Jackson -- perform Tsiganov's original One For Norman at the Yaroslavl Philharmonic during the Jazz Over Volga River Festival in Yaroslavl, Russia, on March 20, 2011
Published with artists' permission
MORE RUSSIAN JAZZ on my YouTube channel

Russian-American Trio at the Jazz Over Volga River Festival in Yaroslavl

2011-03-22T17:38:00.000+03:00

Moscow-based pianist Yakov Okun and two New Yorkers, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Gene Jackson, perform Sonny Rollins' Plain Jane at the Yaroslavl City Jazz Center in Yaroslavl, Russia, on March 19, 2011, during the the Jazz Over Volga River festival.
Published with artists' permission

The festival program consisted of two schedules, one for larger audiences (Yaroslavl Philharmonic, 500 seats, all nights sold out) and the other, in the late nights, for the 450,000-big city's core jazz audience, at the City Jazz Center (120 seats.) This trio performed at the latter venue, to an enthusiastic response from the audience (although, due to a late hour, some members of the audience were a bit too enthusiastic after their too-enthusiastic consumption of a certain Russian beverage -- which could be heard in this recording!)
It was a good festival, folks! The next is scheduled for 2013, as Jazz Over Volga River is a bi-annual festival.

The Quiet Duo

2011-03-02T00:27:00.000+03:00

Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky (trumpet) and Vladimir Volkov (bass) perform their "In Search of a Standard" at the JFC Jazz Club in St.Petersburg, Russia, on February 28, 2011

Known as the Leningrad Duo, or the Quiet Duo, back in the 1980s, Slava Guyvoronsky and Vladimir Volkov parted ways in mid-1990s; Guyvoronsky's work is well-documented on Leo Records, while Volkov went on to play avant rock with several St.Petersburg-based formations. In 2003, they reunited in a wonderful improv trio with pianist Andrei Kondakov. I was heading to the JFC, St.Petersburg's best jazz club, to hear the trio this Monday; but it turned out that Kondakov was unable to perform because of flu, so I had a rare opportunity to hear the Quiet Duo once again, some 15 years after they ceased touring together as a duet.

From the History of Jazz in Russia

2011-02-10T13:46:00.000+03:00

We at Jazz.Ru are very serious about letting our English-speaking readers know about the history and the present-day state of jazz in Russia; only, we have only so many heads, hands, and hours per day, so until now, we could not translate our most informative articles to English too often. Too often we still could not, but at least we would try harder.

Here's one of our latest attempts.

Grigory Shabrov: In Memoriam, by Oleg Stepurko (translated by Diana Kondrashina)
Trumpeter, composer and ex-member of Vitaly Kleynot's band, the first jazz rock band in Russia, Oleg Stepurko remembers his bandmate, pianist Grigory Shabrov, who passed away after prolonged illness on December 2, 2010.

Vitaly Kleinot Band, 1971

Tabackin's Russian Tour

2011-02-05T15:01:00.000+03:00

Lew Tabackin is currently on his 5th Russian tour. Since early 2000s, his band of choice when in Russia is pianist Yakov Okun's - which is currently called MosGorTrio, Russian abbreviation for "Moscow City Trio."
Last night I attended their concert at the cozy and well-renovated recital hall at the Gnessins Russian Academy of Music:

Lew Tabackin (tenor sax) and MosGorTrio (Yakov Okun - piano, Makar Novikov - bass, Sasha Mashin - drums) perform Tedd Mossman's and Baddy Kaye's "Till The End of Time" (adapted from Chopin's Polonaise héroïque in A flat major, Op. 53) at the Gnessins Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, February 4, 2011
Published with artists' permission

Watch more Russian jazz!

2011-01-16T15:32:00.000+03:00

Andrey Kondakov (piano, percussion,) Vladimir Volkov (bass) and Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky (trumpet) perform their composition based on the Russian classical romance song, Alexander Dargomyzhsky's "I Still Love Him" (1851,) during the Moscow premiere performance of their "Dargomyzhsky, Dargomyzhsky" suite at DOM Culture Center, Moscow, Russia, on January 14, 2011
Published with artists' permission

My Escape To America, by Leonid Pereverzev (2001)

2011-01-15T18:41:00.000+03:00

Previously: Leonid Pereverzev, and What I Owe Him

Here is the excerpt from Leonid Pereverzev's book that I promised to post - a few pages that I translated to English, a stunning autobiographical short story, which, I am sure, many of my English-speaking readers will find incredibly fierce and mind-opening.
I would be grateful for corrections, posted here in comments or mailed to moshkow at moshkow.net - after all, English is not my native tongue.

* * *

My Escape To America

I defected to America soon after I turned seven, in the late autumn of 1937. Before the [1917] revolution such thing was far from being not heard of: Russian boys, having read books about courageous trappers, frontier pioneers, last of the Mohicans and other remarkable "red-skins," often tried to escape to the New World. All to often they failed: the defectors were caught and returned to under their fathers' roof before they could make it to the nearest railway station, leave alone the nearest seaport.

By the mid-1930s, however, the idea of fleeing to America became obsolete. The very thought of running abroad would not encourage even the dreamiest of the dreamers or the most adventurous of adventurers of the boys my age. That thought simply could not, or had absolutely no moral right to, come in their heads. Everybody understood that if it was in fact needed, they would send you to the other side with a special, and very dangerous, mission. The hero of the era acted according to an order, not his free will. Act on your own, at your own risk, aside f the plans and orders from the older and more experienced comrades, without their preliminary fatherly approval, their critical notes, their invaluable advice, their concrete instructions on what you, due to your lack of experience, or forgot, or judged wrong, or just did not think of - it always meant a disastrous end, as we were tirelessly reminded of by radio plays, motion pictures, and illustrated books.

Everybody knew that the Soviet Union was encircled with a solid circle of perfidious enemies, and we knew their images well. With their disgustingly scowled pig-wolf mugs, contorted with rage towards the first-ever state of workers and peasants, dripping with malicious saliva, they waited for nothing but to sink their poisoned daggers (already bloody on all propaganda posters, as if from previous terrible crimes) into the next victim, another brave boy who attempted to stand against them.

And everybody knew, and never doubted, that the border was impossible to cross, not only from the outside, but from the inside as well, as all the motion pictures about the brave border guard Karatsupa and his brave dog Indus told us. They were alert, night and day, and so were the faceless, but nevertheless omnipresent authorities, immensely loved by the people, as the popular songs of the day tirelessly reminded.

So I have not tried to run away by firm land, or by sea, or by air. I was lucky enough to find a different type of a loophole, to fool their constant vigilance and, in spite of all their traps, fences, and obstacles, to reach my America, figurally speaking, in just one leap.

You would ask me: what led me there, and how was I able to get there?
(READ MORE...)

Leonid Pereverzev, and What I Owe Him

2011-01-11T18:30:00.001+03:00

In 2006, when the pioneer of Russian Jazz musicology, Leonid Pereverzev, passed away at 75, I found myself a steward of a large collection of his jazz writings.
In 2000-2002 we exchanged dozens of e-mails; having discovered the Internet communication, the forefather of all Russian jazz critics and jazz historians turned out to be a consummate computer user and one of the most active readers, and then authors, of Jazz.Ru, the Russian jazz web central which I run as editor since 1998. Since 2001, Leonid started to send me his writings, granting me the right to publish them in a special section of Jazz.Ru site. I think that he grew tired of not being published. In all his life, and he started writing about jazz in the 1950s, none of his works has ever been published as a book!

For the Soviet culture authorities, who could and did decide is somebody was worthy of being published (as all the book publishing in the country was controlled by the government,) he was an unclear personality. A lifelong jazz fan, a pronounced Americanophile, and an author who wrote on such diverse topics as jazz music, concept design, rock music, the education theory, theory of industrial design, seismoacoustics, the history of time-measuring devices, and the Stone Age graphic art, Pereverzev was hard to categorize, impossible to tame, and clearly more intelligent than his critics. The writer who was the first in theorizing about Jazz in Russian language (and went farther than many of his English-speaking counterparts,) was, for the Soviet authorities, not a musicologist, because he had no degree in musicology from an officially-approved higher education institution! Pereverzev published dozens of magazine articles on jazz, LP sleeve notes, he wrote the JAZZ article for the Big Soviet Encyclopedia, and an addendum, titled "From Jazz To Rock," to a noted musicologist's book on jazz; but he was never given a possibility to publish his large theoretical works on jazz as a separate book. So he decided to put his jazz writings online.

Four years after Pereverzev's passing, I still felt that I owed him. I grew up reading his jazz articles and sleeve notes. All that I knew about jazz until I turned 20, I knew because of him.
When the Russian jazz community mourned his passing, his friend and apprentice, Alexey Batashev, probably the widest-known Russian jazz critic, wrote in an obituary that "Cyril Moshkow of Jazz.Ru accumulated most of Pereverzev's jazz writing, and we hope that one day, he would edit it in a posthumous volume, Collected Jazz Works by Leonid Pereverzev."

So, I had no choice. Last year I persuaded the St.Petersburg-based publishing house, Planet of Music (which previously released three of my own non-fiction books,) to let me make sure that a collection of Pereverzev's jazz texts would see light one day.

With great pleasure I announce that today, Leonid's heir, Boris Pereverzev, with whom we were in a pleasant e-mail communication for a while, signed a contract that makes it possible. The book, under working title "An Offering to Duke Ellington, and Other Jazz Texts by Leonid Pereverzev," ("Приношение Эллингтону и другие тексты о джазе") is going to happen later this year. I act as its compiler and editor.

In a couple of days, I will publish here an excerpt from Leonid Pereverzev's book - a few pages that I translated to English, a stunning autobiographical short story, which, I am sure, many of my English-speaking readers will find incredibly fierce and mind-opening.

Season's!

2010-12-25T15:06:00.000+03:00

You can say "Hey, we in the West say Merry Christmas first, and then Happy New Year".
I can reply that yes, you do; but we in the distant parts celebrate Christmas according to the ancient Julian calendar, i.e. on January 7.
Anyway: Anna and I wish you the best of the best in the year 2011!

Jazz.Ru #6/7-2010

2010-12-16T11:52:00.000+03:00

(cover clickable)

On the cover: Mike Stern in Siberia? Unfold the story
of the new SibJazzFest in Novosibirsk, Siberia's
unofficial capital!

This issue's featured story: How To Make A Jazz Festival?
Alongside Siberian Jazz Festival, thoroughly covered by
Anna Filipieva, we also have several more festival stories in
store: Larry Appelbaum tells the story of the Molde Jazz
Festival in Norway; Gregory Durnovo portraits the exotic
TANJAzz in Tangier, Morocco; other writers review Moscow's
Hermitage Garden Jazz Festival, Austria's Chilli Jazz,
and September in Tikhvin in Northwestern Russia; Cyril
Moshkow interviews George Wein, the inventor of all jazz
festivals, for the occasion of his 85th birthday; and Yuri "Ge-or-Ge"
Lnogradski tells the epic multi-layered tale of Silda Jazz
in Norway!

Also in this issue: interviewed - drummer Oleg Yudanov,
of the Archangelsk Jazz Group fame; the godfather of Russian
jazz rock fusion, sax man Alexey Kozlov, who turns 75;
Ellington alumnus, flautist and saxophonist Anatole Gerasimov;
pianist Igor Volodin speaks about his new album, Quiet
Light... and much more!

Even More Jazz from Russia

2010-11-28T16:30:00.000+03:00

I keep testing my new photo camera which allows quite advanced video possibilities, so please excuse my temporary switch to video mode. People still like visuals, anyway.

The Second Appoarch (composer/pianist Andrey Razin, singer Tatiana Komova, and bassist Igor Ivanushkin) perform Razin's "Gustav Klimt's Dreams" at the Moscow House of Composers, November 20, 2010
published with artists' permission

More Jazz From Russia

2010-11-14T20:03:00.000+03:00

Pianist Ivan Farmakovsky and his band (saxophonist Dmitry Mospan, bassist Anton Revniouk, and drummer Donald Edwards) perform Ivan's original "Soul Inside Out" at the Moscow House of Music on November 10, 2010, during the release party for Ivan's latest CD, "The Way Home" (Butman Music, 2010)

Siberia. Jazz Festival

2010-10-30T00:35:00.000+04:00

When you are invited to emcee a
jazz festival as far from home as Siberia, bringing your formal suit may
be not entirely convenient (especially if the most of your only suitcase
allowed as free check-in baggage is taken by the magazines and books you
bring to sell at the festival CD booth.) Therefore, it is essential to
bring nice bright shirts: they work even better than the formal suits, as
in many instances you find yourself to be the only one on the stage not
dressed in a formal suit!

On the pictures (all three taken by my
partner, Anna Filipieva): day one, day two, and day three of the
Sib Jazz Fest, the new international jazz festival in Novosibirsk,
Siberia's largest city and Russian Asia's jazz hub #1. I have hosted the
festival concerts on October 21-23. A very eclectic program provided me
with the privilege to welcome to the stage such diverse artists as Oliver
Lake, Mike Stern, Didier Lockwood, Stanley Jordan, Richard Galliano, Kevin
Mahogany, and a bunch of very worthy locals (Vladimir Tolkachov Big Band,
remember this name!)

Anna's review of the festival can be

found on Jazz.Ru; the text is in Russian, but there is a lot of very
good pictures, too!

Found in Russia

2010-10-14T00:07:00.000+04:00

This group is called Stolen from Norway: Misha Alperin - piano, Arkady Shilkloper - flugelhorn, Vegar Vårdal - violin. Live in the New Century Impovisation concert series at the Jewish Culture Center, Moscow, October 6, 2010, produced by Mikhail Mitropolsky.
Violinist Vegar Vårdal is the only "real" Norwegian in this trio, although Misha Alperin lives in Norway (and teaches at Oslo's Royal Music Academy) since ealry 1990s. Vegar is also a dedicated scholar of Norwegian folk music (which is clearly heard in his playing, as the theme that he incorporates in this composition is a Norwegian folk tune titled "Springar fra Bjerkreim"); Misha's early inspiration was the music of his native Moldova, while Arkady, whith his 10-years experience in the Moscow Philharmonics, draws much inspiration from Russian classical music. I don't know how much of this music was, in fact, stolen from Norway; I only hope that if it was, so, after two concerts in Russia last week, they did put it back!

Jazz.Ru #5-2010

2010-09-28T13:46:00.001+04:00

(cover clickable)

On the cover: Anna Buturlina, the brightest star of Russian Jazz Vocal, in an extensive interview by Anna Filipieva.
Russia's premier trombonist, Max Piganov, tells his life story. Jazz Travels: TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, by Larry Appelbaum. Introducing Eugene Lebedev, Russia's rising jazz piano star, and his latest album «From East To West». Ashley Kahn's «Kind Of Blue» released in Russian translation. Two young Russians' success on Montreaux Jazz Competitions: pianist Nikolay Sidorenko and vocalist Yulianna Rogacheva interviewed. On the Rise: Estonia's new voice in jazz - bassist Peedu Kaas. Festival review: Don Chento Jazz Festival in Kaliningrad, Western Russia. Clarinetist Ben Goldberg of Tin Hat interviewed... and much more!

Lean more on Jazz.Ru Web site

The Next Generation

2010-09-13T00:41:00.000+04:00

The Caffeine, coffee shop at the Arbat Street in downtown Moscow, Russia. Last Saturday. Young musicians, fresmen at the Moscow State College of Jazz Music (where the freshmen classes only started on September 1,) play Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island." Nobody seems to be older than 18.
(click on the image to see more details)

(photo by Tatyana Ilina)

Jazz in Northwestern Russia

2010-09-08T00:10:00.001+04:00

Tikhvin is one nice small town in Northwestern part of Russia, some 150 miles east from St.Petersburg. It is a quiet, cozy, and very ancient town (since 14th century.) And, believe it or not, it has its own annual jazz festival, September in Tikhvin. Of course it's not large, and features mostly regional artists from Northwestern Russia (Arkhangelsk, St.Petersburg, and Tikhvin itself, with a rare intervention from one or two Moscow-based acts.) The festival's 11th edition took place last weekend; as always, its heart and soul was Igor Volodin, Tikhvin's own jazz pianist, composer, and the festival's art director since its inaugural year, 1999. My partner Anna Filipieva (Jazz.Ru's associate editor) and I really liked both the festival and the city, where we've never been before.

Tikhvin's heart: the Theotokos Dormition Monastery, founded by Tsar Ivan the Terrible in 1560

Igor Volodin (left) played a great program of his new originals, much in the vein of his latest album, "Illusions" (Bomba-Piter, 2010.) But there was a bunch of other musicians worth listening: Muscovite sax player Alexey Kruglov, St.Petersburger harmonica wiz Max Nekrasov, and - last but not least - Arkhangelsk-based guitarist Tim Dorofeyev, who presented a program of his original tunes (with a sole interception from Monk's side, "'Round Midnight",) performed with solid backing from his fellow Archangel citizens, drummer Oleg Yudanov and bassist Nikolay Klishin, both of the 1980s Arkhangelsk Band fame. Here's their jazz rendition of a Northern Russian folk song, "Chto Iz Ustia Beriozova" (literally, "From the Beriozova River Delta".)

Leaning on the Classics

2010-08-24T18:01:00.000+04:00

In downtown Moscow, there's a small but cozy park, Hermitage Garden. Last weekend it hosted the 13th edition of the three-day Hermitage Garden Jazz Festival (annual since 1998) - the de-facto start signal for the next Moscow jazz concert season.
This year's edition had on board the likes of Jeremy Pelt, Greg Tardy, Poland's Adam Wendt PowerSet and Austria's Ulrich Drechsler Quartet, as well as eight worthy Russian bands.

I could not miss a chance to record a couple of tunes for the Jazz.Ru Magazine's brand new YouTube channel; our photographer, Vladimir Korobitsyn, made this nice shot when I was using the garden's signature statue of the great Russian composer, Mikhail Glinka, as a tripod to get a more steady picture. You can see that the equipment I use is far from being fancy: the picture was shot on an old Lumix photo camera (I simply don't have a video camera,) and the camera's built-in microphone is a nightmare, so I captured the sound on a Zoom H2 digital recorder (in my left hand under the camera) and then inserted the soundtrack from it into the video file. I hope Glinka did not mind it. There was also a Tchaikovsky statue on the other side of the stage, but it was less accessible for my purposes.
Here is what I have been shooting:

Moscow-based trombonist Max Piganov and his Trombone Show perform Cole Porter's "You Do Something To Me" at the Hermitage Garden Jazz Festival in Moscow, Russia, on August 21, 2010. Piganov plays the 1st solo.
With artist's permission.

Russia's first popular introduction to the blues history

2010-08-13T14:47:00.002+04:00

"The Blues. Introduction to the History", by Cyril Moshkow
St.Petersburg, Planet of Music, 2010
ISBN 9785919380030

Why somebody who is publishing a jazz magazine, would write a book about the blues? It's this simple: I'm into the blues just as much as I'm into jazz, with one major distinction. I have never played jazz music myself, but in the past, I have played blues rock in a band for more than a decade. Which does not add much to my expertise, only to my determination to write about the blues when it's possible.
For a few years back in the 1990s, I was jazzing the airwaves on a now-defunct private-owned AM radio station in Moscow; one of my multiple radio shows, which would run on Saturday evenings, was called "The Black Soil" and presented all types of blues-based and/or blues-related African-American music to the Russian audiences. In early 2000s, I wrote a series of articles about the U.S. record labels specialized in African-American music for the Moscow-based "Audio Engineer" magazine: from Black Swan, Columbia, Okeh, and Paramount to Sun, Modern, Chess, Stax, and Motown. That was the beginning of the book: I combined the musicians' stories from my early radio shows with the labels' stories from the articles series, reorganized it chronologically, and during 2008-2010 the first Russian popular introduction to the blues history was finalized and accepted by the Planet of Music publishing company in St.Petersburg, Russia, who also published my first non-fiction book, "The Jazz Industry in America" (2008,) and a book of jazz musicians' interviews and feature stories from Jazz.Ru magazine, "The Jazz Greats" (2009,) where I served as editor and one of 14 authors.
"The Blues. Introduction to the History" is written in Russian language, and targeted on Russian audiences, who may not be aware of many facts from the American political, social and musical history. This means that I have not only to tell stories about the bluesmen and their recordings, but also to explain many things, such as "what is segregation," "who is Jim Crow," "why there was a Civil War in the U.S. (no, not for the same reasons why there was a Civil War in Russia,)" "why we may have dozens of sound recordings of a certain country bluesman and no photos of his face," etc. I hope that this book will help building more understanding (and appreciation) of the American culture in Russian society.

Russia on fire

2010-08-09T13:59:00.000+04:00

Youri Lnogradski, associate editor at Jazz.Ru magazine, resides some 80 miles north from Moscow, in a small town called Dubna. Most of current forest fires are to the east and sountheast from Moscow, but Dubna is also affected -- woods burn some ten miles southeast, near Meldino village. Youri has a flight to Norway on Wednesday (he is going to cover the Silda Jazz Festival in Haugesund, Norway, for Jazz.Ru magazine,) but I can totally understand why he enlisted as volunteer firefighter to extinguish the Meldino fire.

Jazz.Ru #3/4-2010

2010-08-05T14:58:00.000+04:00

#3/4-2010 released on August 5, 2010!

(cover clickable)

On the cover: John Abbott's portrait of Hank Jones,
accompanying "The Last of Joneses," a feature story about
Hank's long and fruitful life in music. Festival chronicles:
extensive reviews of the Moscow's "Mansion.Jazz",
Tallin's Jazzkaar and Plios Jazz Festival in rural
part of Northern Russia. The National Jazz Guide: Republic of
Belarus - a review of jazz history (including a story about
the centennial of Eddie Rosner, the founder of jazz in
Belarus,) today's jazz scene, and the state of jazz education in
Belarus. Jazz Awards 2010: an overview, including the
triumph of our staff photographer Lena Adasheva, who won
the Photo of the Year award. Vienna Art Orchestra: game
over. Seattle's Real Poets: Yuri Lnogradski interviews
Dennis Rea and Jay Jaskot. Roy Haynes and the Fountain of
Youth: Diana Kondrashina attends the 85th birthday celebration
of the legendary drummer in NYC. Pianist Valery Grokhovsky
at 50: "It's so easy to vulgarize the classics!" Kurt
Gottschalk's New York Is Now. Space Vibrations in the
capital of Siberia: Roman Stolyar interviews Matthew Shipp
after the latter's concert with Sabir Mateen in Novosibirsk.
Bassist Dominic Duval interviewed by Maxim Micheliov.
Young Scene: Pianist Grigory Sandomirsky. In Memoriam:
Rob McConnell, Fred Anderson, Lena Horne, Joya Sherrill.
Russians Keep Coming: pianist Nikolay Sidorenko wins
Montreux Jazz Festival's Boesendorfer Solo Piano Competition,
singer Yuliana Rogacheva takes home the Listeners Prize
from the Shure Montreaux Jazz Voice Competition... and much
more!

A Smoggy Day in Moscow Town

2010-08-04T14:26:00.000+04:00

Impressive, huh?
This is the view from my window today at noon. At 6 AM, the railroad tracks behind the trees, leave alone the buildings behind them, could not be seen at all -- only the racetrack and the trees could be distinguished in the haze. The smell of burning wood is very strong.

99 F right now, never before registered in August. The forecast for Monday is 105.

Sorry this has nothing to do with jazz. Has to do with "how does it feel," though.

Bye, dad.

2010-07-21T17:50:00.006+04:00

My father, Vladimir Erweis, passed away earlier today in Moscow. He was 81.
That was one long, eventful life. He was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1928. Hes father (my grandfather,) Grigory Erweis, was arrested by Stalin's authorities and sentenced to ten years of exile on false accusations in 1940. My dad moved with him to a small town in Kazakhstan where grandfather was sent to.

In 1942, 14-years-old Vladimir decided to join the Red Army to fight Nazis. He entered the Selishe Aviation Mechanics School in northern Kazakhstan and, after completing the course in 1944, was sent to the frontline. He served as aviation mechanic on the Balkan Peninsula part of the frontline. When war was over, he was transferred to Azerbaijan (at that time part of the Soviet Union) where he served the rest of then-regular 4.5-years military service term as a member of a radar post crew until October 6, 1948, when he was sent to the city of Ashgabat (capital of the Soviet republic of Turkmenistan) that was totally destroyed in a few minutes by one of the worst earthquakes in history. After many days of digging the debris in the risig odour (as two thirds of the city's population, over one houndred thousand people, died in the earthquake,) Vladimir experienced a breakdown and was sent to a hospital for two months of rehabilitation. After that, he was discharged from the military service.

Upon returning to the civil life in late 1948, he found his family reunited in Western part of Russia, in a small city called Velikie Luki. The city was heavily destroyed during the war, but there was a lot of reconstruction going on, and a brand new steel mill where Vladimir found a job, first as a steelworker, then (after six years) as a foreman. He also participated in amateur theater production at the steel mill worker's club, which, as I understand, led him to a most exotic decision: after five years in the military and ten years in metallurgy, he decided to change his life entirely. In 1958, aged 30, Vladimir Erweis moved to Moscow and enrolled in full-time Filmmaking course at the Moscow Institute of Cinematography. He also married at that time, thought briefly. He graduated in 1966, and set to work in documentary filmmaking.

In 1966, he met my mother, Irina Moshkova, 16 years his junior, who at that time was working at the Izvestia publishing house. She, too, was divorced, like dad. Next year he moved to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he signed a contract with Tajikfilm Studios for several documentary films. My mom moved with him, and they married. In 1968, she returned to Moscow to give birth to me; dad was filming half the time in Tajikistan, half the time staying in Moscow. A few of his documentary movies were really successful, especially "Light" (1969,) about the construction of the 984-ft-tall Nurek Dam on the Vakhsh River, and "Cinema" (1970), awarded Gold prize at the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary Film (DOK Leipzig) in Germany the same year. "Cinema" was a touching 20-minute story of a Tajik man who operated a moving cinema (essentially, a truck with a cinema projector and a sound system) -- he was moving from one tiny highland village in Pamir Mountains to another to show the local peasants the movie about Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark. This documentary would still run about once a year at the Moscow's Cinema Museum Theater until the late 2000s.

My parents divorced in 1977. After that, I have seen dad a few times a year, when he was in Moscow -- he continued to film documentaries for different prodiction companies throughout the Soviet Union and abroad (in East Germany in 1972 and 1978, for instance.) In early 1980s, he moved to Chukotka, the farthest Eastern part of Russia, next door to Alaska (across the Bering Strait,) where he found a new home and a new family. He married Natalia Khabarova, a prominent geologist, in 1983. This marriage proved to be the happiest: they were still together this morning when he died.

Dad filed several documentaries in Chukotka, dedicated to the people who work in this remote Northern region: dockers, geologists, gold miners. He also wrote several non-fiction books for a local publishing house, including "Women of Chukotka" and "Natalia Khabarova's Golden Trail." This is how he met Natalia: the local geology research authority assigned him to write about this wonderful woman, who at 45 was the top expert in the region's geology research, especially in finding the Chukotka's biggest treasure, gold.

In the late 1980s, they both retired and moved to Moscow where dad owned a small apartment. Dad was really happy to see his grandson, my son, born in 1989. Dad and I used to see each other several times a year, whatever happened in my life. He might not entirely understand (or simply like) the music I devoted my life to (his favorites being Russian singers-songwriters who played guitars and sung simple melodies with rich poetic texts,) but he was proud to see me writing books, publishing a magazine, travelling the world, and liked to see the photos I would bring from my travels.

Bye, dad. I'm going to miss you.

Who said Russian song has no blues?

2010-07-13T11:33:00.000+04:00

Zventa Sventana is an ethno fusion band from Moscow; most of their beauty is the aural conflict between two female voices, those of Alyona Romanova and Tina Kuznetsova. Normally, it's a jazz rock fusion band with funky slapping electric bass, electric guitar etc. But this exact video eliminates all pop elements by narrowing the conflict down to the coexistence of two basic elements of which Zventa Sventana's music consists: Russian folk song (represented by Alyona, who is, after all, an ethnomusicologist specializing in Russian music folklore) and the blues (represented by Tina, who is a professional jazz singer.) What Alyona is singing here is stradaniya, a specific type of Russian folk song similar to the blues in its mood -- only, strictly female (never sung by male singers.) I'm sure you'll figure out what Tina is singing.
Oh, yes, and I'm sure everybody recognizes the instrument Alyona is playing: it's a balalaika.

Jazz.Ru Official Video Channel Launch

2010-06-27T16:52:00.002+04:00

Jazz.Ru, the Russian jazz magazine I work for, prodly presents its own YouTube video channel.
We publish original video content, mostly Russian jazz and improv artists who perform in Jazz.Ru: New Sound series which we co-produce with the Union of Composers jazz club in Moscow twice a month. Those videos, hovever moderate in quality (so far, we're using an old digital photo camera for shooting,) are clean in terms of copyright, as every upload is authorized by the artists themselves.
In "Favorites" section we also link to the videos of Russian jazz artists from different eras posted by somebody else.
Extensive expansion of the channel is currently planned. If you knew of good Russian jazz on YouTube he haven't yet linked to, would you please send us a link!

JOIN THE CHANNEL
Watch the latest video right here:
Herman Lukianov (tenor horn) and KADANS perform Lukianov's "Constant Value" on June 26, 2010. Solos: Alexey Kruglov (alto sax), Lukianov, Anton Zaletaev (tenor sax)

On The Free Market

2010-06-25T15:33:00.000+04:00

It's not that I always sell Jazz.Ru magazines myself, along with writing for it, editing it, and publishing it. No. But we only have one salesperson who works for us at all major jazz festivals in Moscow area. And when he needed a lunch during two-day Usadba.Jazz Festival (Manor.Jazz, literally) in a beautiful 18th century manor 10 miles off Moscow city limits in early June, I just sent him to have lunch, and sat at our magazine stand myself. I have sold 390 roubles worth of magazines (around 13 U.S. dollars) by the time he returned twenty minutes later, and our photograpler, Vladimir Korobitsyn, made this shot while I was counting the money.

Plane crash kills 97 Polish people in western part of Russia

2010-04-10T19:49:00.000+04:00

Chcę wyrazić najszczersze wyrazy współczucia dla rodziny i pzyjaciół wsyzstkich ofiar katastrofy prezydenckiego samolotu i dla wszystkich Polaków.
(I want to express a deep sympathy to the friends and relatives of all victims of Poland's presidential airplane, and to all Polish people)

Saxophonist George Garanian, Russia's Jazz Pioneer, Dies

2010-01-12T00:09:00.000+03:00

by Cyril Moshkow

Shortly upon his arrival in Krasnodar, Russia, where he was scheduled to conduct the Krasnodar Municipal Big Band during two planned concerts with featured soloist Michel Legrand, the Soviet jazz veteran bandleader, arranger, composer, and alto saxophonist George Garanian was hospitalized in the morning hours of January 11, 2010. According to his wife, Nelly Zakirova, the 75-years-old bandleader suffered a heart attack, which eventually led to his death.
George (Georgy) Garanian was born in Moscow on August 14, 1934. He belonged to the 1950s "jazz engineers" generation -- a circle of musicians, mostly graduate and postgraduate students at Moscow and Leningrad's technical and engineering universities, with no background in classical music training, but with sheer admiration of the new, post-WWII jazz styles. Their jazz education consisted of endless careful transcriptions of American jazz stars' solos using not the original American records, which were not legally available behind the Iron Curtain, but either taped transmissions from the Voice of America (and its host Willis Conover, whose "special English" became the source of English education for those enthusiasts,) or the "jazz on the bones," self-made 78s records cut on used X-ray film, with somebody's broken ribs in the background.

In 1958, Garanian became the first Soviet-born soloist accepted in the famed Oleg Lundstrem Orchestra, the Shanghai-based swing band from the 1930s which moved to its members' distant homeland, Russia, after WWII. In the 1960s, he worked in Moscow Radio's Vadim Lyudvikovski Big Band, where he showed a considerable passion for arranging the music. In 1973, the new Soviet Television and Radio Committee Chairman, Sergey Lapin, who hated Western music, fired the entire Radio Big Band and got rid of all jazz in the Soviet TV and radio programming; Garanian, and a few chosen instrumentalists from the former Lyudvikovski Big Band, formed the core of the new studio band, Melodia, which worked for the U.S.S.R's only record label with the same name.

Garanian spent about fifteen years as Melodia's director, arranging music for the country's leading pop singers and singing film stars, and directing the Melodia Big Band for dance albums. He did not play saxophone at that time, but, as director and conductor, made sure that the orchestra, which consisted of the leading Soviet jazz soloists, would record a few albums of his arrangements of jazz standards and Garanian's originals, mostly in the realm of light fusion (closer to disco) sounds.

In post-Soviet Russia, Garanian became one of the busiest bandleaders: in early 2000s, he would simultaneously direct up to four big bands in several Russian cities, including renewed Melodia Big Band, Krasnodar Municipal Big Band, and (from 2003 to 2006) the Oleg Lundstrem Big Band. Garanian toured extensively, mostly with either of his multiple big bands, performing jazz evergreens and/or Soviet song and movie music classics in his own arrangements, very accessible to general public. He resumed his alto sax playing after a 15-years break in the early 1990s, but, obviously, never reached his own former level as soloist, though at one stage (in mid-1990s) he also toured in a piano-guitar-sax trio setting where he soloed a lot.

In 1999, Garanian conducted the Moscow Symphony Orchestra during the Oregon's "Oregon in Moscow" sessions. Produced by Pat Metheny Group's Steve Rodby, the album received a Grammy nomination, thus partly making Garanian Russia's first non-classical Grammy nominee.

Funeral arrangements were not yet announced by mid-day of January 11.

On the photo by Pavel Korbout: George Garanian conducts his Melodia Big Band in Moscow on October 22, 2009

Published: AllAboutJazz.Com

Jazz Festivals in Russia

2009-11-25T13:27:00.000+03:00

I think that every person who writes about jazz is, this way or that, spammed regularly: there's hundreds and thousands or artists in the world, and they (or their agents) want gigs. It's understandable. But I've been getting more and more queries lately, literally drowning in dozens of queries a day -- queries of three similar types:

1. from those who bought a lousy "Jazz promoters database". I am (or, to be precise, my private e-mail address is) listed there as Yuri Saulsky, Moscow Jazz Festival. Yuri Saulsky, God bless his soul, died seven years ago, and his festival is defunct since 2000. Who on Earth happened to submit to some unhappy database my address as the late Mr.Saulsky's? And who keeps SELLING that b*s* to innocent people? Show me that person. I will do no harm. I just want to look into that person's eyes.

2. from those who bought another lousy database, where I was listed correctly as Cyril Moshkow, but -- a festival organizer. Still, looking in the eyes of the person who submitted me there is one of my priorities.

3. from those inventive and energetic ones who googled up "Jazz Festivals in Russia", found an outdated old page in Jazz.Ru portal's tiny English section, and contacted me as if I were all those festivals once listed there.

At least I could do something for those from the paragraph 3: they definitely deserved better than an outdated page, and if they had current contacts of at least ten major Russian festivals, might they as well please, please leave me alone?

So I did something that I could do without significant looks into anybody's eyes: I renewed the Jazz Festivals in Russia directory on Jazz.Ru. It is not much, still only ten festivals (out of several dozens - compare with the directory's Russian version!), but those are major festivals with English-speaking staff (which is rarely the case in Russia) and relevant Web sites (wich is also not very common,) so maybe the stream of incoming tour offers and performance queries will reduce just a tiny little bit. I cannot give jobs to musicians, but at least I can hint them who (theoretically) does!

Behold the Power of Jazz

2009-10-11T20:37:00.000+04:00

Two young Russian punks dance to the music of Dennis Adu, the African-Ukrainian jazz trumpet player from Kiev, Ukraine, while Dennis performs a jazz ballad at the MuzEnergo, open-air multi-genre festival in Dubna, Moscow Region, Russia (July, 2009)
Photo by Sergei "Incognito" Kolier
Click on the image to view it full-size.

Open-Air Jazz In And Around Moscow

2009-10-11T01:40:00.000+04:00

By Cyril Moshkow

Moscow's summer is relatively brief: early June is normally the first really warm time during the year, and the final week of August normally the last; which means that most of the fifteen million people who live in and around the Russian capital try to take full advantage of those three short months. Those who can travel, head to favorite Russian tourist destinations, like Turkey, Cyprus or the shores of the Black Sea; those who own patches of land in the city's nearest vicinities (with Russia's centuries-long peasantry traditions, of whom there are surprisingly many) try to spend as much precious summer time at their dachas as possible. Still, millions stay in the city, and they want fun.

Hermitage Garden Jazz Festival
Moscow, Russia
August 21-23, 2009

The first jazz festival to be held outdoors in Moscow was the Hermitage Garden Jazz Festival, the first edition taking place as early as 1998, when the festival started the day after the Russian government defaulted the country's economy; quite miraculously, the event held on, and is now in its 12th year...
[CONTINUE READING ON ALLABOUTJAZZ.COM]

On American Airwaves

2009-10-09T00:01:00.008+04:00

Cyril Moshkow and Larry Appelbaum, at the Pacifica WPFW radio station on Oct.4, 2009

October 4, 2009: Cyril Moshkow, the publisher and editor of Jazz.Ru, Russia's only Jazz magazine, appeared on WPFW in Washington, DC as a guest of Larry Appelbaum's Sunday radio show, Sound of Surprise, for a two-hour dialog about the state of jazz in Russia.
LISTEN:
part 1 (wma, 25.7 Mb, 1:13:47); part 2 (wma, 14.2 Mb, 0:40:47)

(photos by Larry Appelbaum)

Cyril Moshkow in D.C.

2009-09-18T10:48:00.003+04:00

This is going to be my 13th visit to the United States, and my 1st to the federal capital. I am there for the 10th anniversary of the Open World Program of which I am one of the nominators in Russia (which means that I nominate young Russian jazz musicians who then go to the United States for an intense coure of training); after that, I will be meeting people in D.C. who work in the jazz infrastructure, and see some live music.
I will also take part in one important public event; if you are in Washington on September 30, come and take part.

On Sept. 30, Open World and the Library of Congress Music Division will cosponsor a lunchtime event to be held in the Library's Madison Building, 101 Independence Avenue, SE. The Jazz Summit: Conversations on the American influence in Russian Jazz will be led by two world-renowned jazz experts, Russian Cyril Moshkow and American Larry Appelbaum. Both of these experts have been involved with Open World jazz delegations.

Please join us for this free event Sept. 30. Contact Maura Shelden for details, mshelden@loc.gov.

Additional Information: Jazz Summit Flyer (313.7KB)

Appears Briefly

2009-06-05T11:53:00.002+04:00

I am going to be in New York City from June 13 to June 17. On the 16th, I'm taking part in the 13th Jazz Awards ceremony. I will also speak to Howard Mandel's World Music classes at NYU (Monday, June 15, 6:15 to 9:30 pm); there is something else in my schedule (a couple of interviews etc.) -- but still, I'm ready for a contact, if someone needs such contact. I will be staying in midtown Manhattan; I'm easy to contact either through comments here, or via e-mail moshkow@moshkow.net.

Russians Are Coming: the Second Approach in NYC

2009-05-11T13:25:00.006+04:00

A great new jazz trio from Moscow, the Second Approach, is going to perform at Brooklyn's Ibeam (168 7th Street Brooklyn) on June 12, 2009. Yes, they are friends of mine, but that is not the point. The point is, they are great musicians; they are not exactly straight-ahead jazz, but [still] thoroughly enjoyable, and their only NYC performance is not to be missed (they also play Rochester Jazz Festival on June 15 and 16.) If you can come and see them, do it: it's worth it. If you can help spread a word about it, please do so: we need to bring in as many people able to understand their values as possible. Yes, Russia does have a new jazz scene, however small; and those musicians do not imitate anybody - they follow their own patterns. It's quite difficult to put the Second Approach on a narrow genre shelf. It's jazz, modern classical, and post-modern ethno/jazz crossover at the same time, rooted in native Russian music rather than in anything else.

The performance will take place at Ibeam (168 7th Street Brooklyn) on June 12. For a few tunes the trio (Andrey Razin, the piano player and composer; Tatiana Komova, the singer; and Igor Ivanushkin, the bass player) will be joined by the great Roswell Rudd, the trombone player. Roswell is featured on the Second Approach's new CD, The Light (SoLyd Records, 2009); this picture of Roswell and Tatiana, the Second Approach singer, is taken by me during their 2007 performance in Moscow.

There is a $10 donation at the door; music journalists can contact the band via Cyril Moshkow of Moscow JJA to be on the list.
Ibeam
Directions (how to get there)
The Second Approach

Jazz.Ru #2-2009

2009-04-29T01:14:00.003+04:00

On the cover: renowned Russian composer/pianist Ivan Farmakovsky releases «Next To The Shadow» featuring Ryan Kisor, Igor Butman, Gene Jackson and Uggonna Okegvo
Jazz Travel: Festival Internacional Jazz Plaza, Havana, Cuba
Larry Appelbaum of the Library of the Congress speaks with Radio Russia jazz host Mikhail Mitropolsky about the unearthed archive gems
From "The Offering To Duke": we commemorate Duke Ellington's 110th birthday by printing, for the first time, one chapter ("Sacred Concerts") from the late Russian jazzology pioneer Leonid Pereverzev's yet-unpublished lifetime work
Contact! -- Jazz.Ru's correspondent Zinaida Kartasheva visits the Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark, NJ
Matthew Shipp interviewed in Moscow
1st Moscow Young Jazz Vocalists Competition
The Moscow Jazz & Blues Jam Sessions Guide
Dialogues: horn virtuoso Arkady Shilkloper discusses various aspects of his work with Yekaterinburg jazz radio host Gennady Sakharov
George Avakian turns 90
Young Scene: Roman Sokolov, sax/flute
Russian Real Book in progress: Valery Ponomarev's "I Was Afraid You'd Never Call Me"

Happy 90th Birthday, George!

2009-03-19T20:35:00.002+03:00

George Avakian, the legendary jazz producer, just turned 90.
Happy Birthday, George!

The Jazz Greats, Jazz.Ru's book about musicians

2009-02-20T19:35:00.001+03:00

The Planet of Music publishers (St. Petersburg, Russia) just sent me a PDF file with The Jazz Greats, our next jazz book. I already have one published (The Jazz Industry In America, Planet of Music, 2008,) but the new one is a different story. The Jazz Greats is a collection of exclusive original feature articles, interviews, historical aricles and (alas) obituaries on 89 great international jazz musicians, published in in Russian language by Jazz.Ru magazine, both online and in print, from 2001 to 2008. I am one of the writing autors (one of 12, to be exact,) compilation editor, and compilation author. After we proofread the layout, the book is going to be sent to print, due out by May, 2009.

The book is about international (American and European) jazz musicians; what we pubished on Russians, is going to be included in another book, if all goes well.

At last, out #1-2009

2009-02-16T21:00:00.002+03:00

In our first 2009 issue:

- Alex Rostotsky (face on the cover) and his newest "Promenade With Mussorgsky" album
- Joe Pass would be 80, Lonnie Johnson 110, J.J.Johnson 85, and Benny Golson turns 80
- Crisis? What crisis? - a new jazz club opens in Moscow on the Arbat street
- GRAMMY® Jazz Nominees and Winners
- The Bad Plus: Why We Play This Strange Music (Ethan Iverson and Reid Anderson interviewed)
- Blue Note Records turns 70
- Vilnius Mama Jazz, the Festival of the Popular Jazz
- Jazz Travels: Jazz Globus Festival in Jerusalem, Israel
- Will Know: Italian-Russian sax player Dimitri Grechi Espinosa
- Kurt Gottschalk's New York Is Now
- In memoriam: Fathead Newman, Hank Crawford, Freddie Hubbard
- Young Lions Turn 40
- Will Know: Polish sax innovator Macei Koczynski
- Young Scene: bari sax player Roman Sekachev
- The Discreet Charm of the Vinyl: Guennady Petrov and Nikolai Shienok review their favorite vinyl rarities
- History: Alexander Rivchun, Russia's first saxophone educator (1914-1974)
- Jazz Experience: Improvising Musicians Conference in Denver, reviewed by its participator Roman Stolyar
- What Do We Play -- Misha Tsiganov keeps bulding the Russian Real Book

In stores since February 25, 2009

One More E-Gadget

2009-02-16T18:32:00.003+03:00

I have no idea yet why I need that, but since it's there I'll dwell there as well: Cyril Moshkow on Myspace

Maybe it's just to add musicians I know as friends there, I don't know. A serious writer should have millions of web pages. The only thing I do not yet dare to use, as I feel there like a bearded dwarf in a elementary school playground, is Facebook (and its Russian derivative, vkontakte.ru).

My son runs Jazz.Ru's vkontakte.ru group, though.

Speaking stereotypes

2009-02-01T16:23:00.003+03:00

A recently found quotation:

"If you listened to my recordings in the Soviet Union during the darkest days of the Cold War, you could be sent to Siberia or worse. They listened to my records, and they called it “Jazz in Bones.” Using X-ray plates, they could record Willis Conover and get a fairly good recording. If you were caught with that, you were dead. But the doctors and the nurses and the students would very carefully listen to these recordings, and they had underground jazz meetings all the time."

"Cool Jazz and the Cold War. Dana Gioia Interviews Dave Brubeck on Cultural Diplomacy" (in: 2006 NEA Jazz Masters Awards brochure)

What a heap of biased, stereotype-driven, stereotype-loaded and stereotype-governed rubbish. If you were caught with Willis Conover radio shows recorded on the X-ray plates (???? -- there was enough tape machines by the time Willis would be the most popular jazz DJ in the Soviet Union; X-ray plates were for copying the original vinyls, otherwise unavailable in the country) you were DEAD??? Cattle crap.

Crisis, say you.

2009-01-30T01:15:00.003+03:00

Alright, this is the real sign of the crisis: I just got home from the "technical opening" of a new flashy jazz club in downtown Moscow, right on the Arbat street (the tourist walking zone where visiting Americans and Europeans get their super expensive fur hats, bad imitations of the old Soviet military uniform, and balalaikas that would never play.) I had a couple of nice caipirinhas, and Anna had something blue and smelly, called Jazz -- it definitely involved some Curaçao and sugar. Musically, the crowd of old jazz aficionados (peers of one of the club's owners, Victor,) journalists and jazz musicians was treated the so-called MosGorTrio, Moscow City Trio, led by great pianist Yakov Okun, with their special guest, Craig Handy. Cheers, guys. If that is the crisis, I like it. After all, it was the previous major crisis in Russia in 1998 when we started that seemingly hopeless project called Jazz.Ru, which is, for the last ten years, my daily bread.

It was the technical opening, though: the club has no official name yet, and the big party is yet to be given. Let's see. No predictions. Capairinhas were refreshing, though.

Reading the news

2009-01-27T23:14:00.002+03:00

Aξιος!

Russia's First Book On American Jazz

2008-08-08T20:23:00.004+04:00

Well, the sensational headline is a bit too sensational: technically, most of the books about jazz published in Russia so far are the books on American jazz -- but they are either compilations, or translations. What I wrote is the first-ever original book about jazz, written in Russsian language -- a book that tells stories about how the American jazz community is functioning: how the musicians get their education, how they play in clubs and at the festivals, how they make recordings, how other people then cover their music in the press and play it on the radio, conduct research on them etc.

As I already wrote here, the book, titled The Jazz Industry in America, is published by Planeta Muzyki, the St. Petersburg-based branch of Russia’s Lan publishing house. The book is based on a collection of more than 40 in-person and several more phone and email interviews with American jazz educators, club owners, festival organizers, scholars, radio presenters, record label executives, producers, sound engineers and others who create and support jazz.

On July 30, I presented the book at the American Cultural Center in Moscow; it was nice to see some fifty people in the room, to answer their intelligent and in-depth questions, and to hear several kind words from my colleagues.
On the picture: Dmitry Ukhov, the chairman of the Moscow branch of Jazz Journalist Association (right,) shares his thoughts about the book with the author (left) and the audience.

BTW if you read Russian and want to purchase the book, do not hesitate to contact me. If you prefer to leave a comment here, please also leave your contact information (preferably e-mail, or your site/blog where I can find some means of communication with you.)

Georgia Swings

2008-07-19T19:04:00.005+04:00

Vakhtang Kikabidze, Georgia's most popular singer, turns 70 today. He is still poular all over the former Soviet Union, especially in Russia; starring in Mimino, one of the 1970s most popular Soviet movies, made him a national superstar, and everybody in the Union, even if they could not say a word in Georgian, murmured his theme song from that movie: chito-gvrito, chito-margalito, dah... But this is not why I write about Kikabidze today: thing is, initially he was a jazz drummer, and swung really hard. Here's his early video footage from late 1960s. It's Orero, Georgia's most popular group at that time. Orero was not exactly a jazz group: they sung complex harmonies (four- and even five-part harmonies are intergal part of Georgian folk music, and most Georgians sing them naturally) over the background of a regular jazz piano trio. Kikabidze was the drummer in the band and also sung scat solos where 1,500-years-old tradition of Georgian chants interacted with African-American swing. This little video was shot in Moscow, apparently by the Soviet Central Television, and it's so nice and funny to see how Russian capital looked forty years ago, without too many skyscrapers and neon lights. Vakhtang Kikabidze's solo starts around 2:11.

BTW Kikabidze still lives in Tbilisi, Georgia, but was awarded by a state medal of Russia by the Russian president earlier today.

The Jazz Industry in America

2008-07-11T00:34:00.004+04:00

In December, 2007, the Jazz Notes wrote in News of Members section:

Cyril Moshkow, publisher and editor of Moscow-based
Jazz.Ru, Russia’s only jazz magazine, signed a
contract for his first jazz book, The Jazz Industry in
America, to be published next March in Russian by
Planeta Muzyki, the St. Petersburg-based branch of
Russia’s Lan publishing house. The book is based on a
collection of more than 40 in-person and several more
phone and email interviews with American jazz educators,
club owners, festival organizers, scholars, radio
presenters, record label executives, producers, sound
engineers and others who create and support jazz.
From 1998 to 2007, Cyril took 11 self-supported trips
to the U.S. (some 20 weeks in total) to meet people in
the jazz industry and visit jazz festivals, jazz clubs and
jazz organizations in 10 states. He regards the book as
his own 40th birthday present.

Well, what can I say, folks? Book's out, and hits stores in Moscow and St.Petersburg this week.
Sorry the book is in Russian only, so there's no point to export it. Hope there'e enough jazzophrenics in Russia (and in neighbor countries where people read Russian) to prevent the book from gathering dust on the bookstores' shelves.

Estate Jazz, Nice News, Sad News

2008-06-17T13:39:00.007+04:00

So, the 5th Estate.Jazz festival is over. Held at Arkhangelskoe, beautiful 18th century estate near Moscow, it is Moscow's biggest outdoor jazz festival. Or "jazz" festival: of its five stages, only one features real jazz. Three smaller stages, all hidden in cozy corners of the estate's great park, are dedicated to swing/rockabilly/jive, lounge/acid, and blues/funk, respectively; the main stage -- on a great lawn between the estate's main palace and two smaller buildings forming a nice esplanada overlooking Moscow River and the forests behind it -- is more-or-less so-so jazz: Karl Denson, Brand New Heavies, etc.
But the jazz stage, located in a pictoresque inner yard of the Prince Yusupov's 18th century palace, was fun. Charlie Hunter headlined the Friday night, most of which was dedicated to the first edition of a young jazz groups competition, sponsored by the festival (congrats, Belorussian band The Outsiders and Muscovite trio led by pianist Alexey Ivannikov, who shared the $5,000 1st prize.) Yusef Lateef performed at the jazz stage on June 13, for the first time in his 87-years-long life, with French group Belmondo Brothers. Alex Rostotsky's Jazz Bass Theatre closed the third evening, by chance with their new drummer, one Billy Cobham (see photo.)

I was unable to listen to their whole set, though I greatly desired it. We had to pack our desk where we've been selling Jazz.Ru magazine (my own son Nikita -- yes, this name is male in Russian! -- debuted as the salesperson.) We've packed it, along with a few unsold magazines, and drove off to Moscow. We could have, of course, enjoyed the whole of Alex Rostotsky/Billy Cobham set, which was definitely worth it, but in this case, driving off would take hours -- the old estate driveway was not designed for having 10,000 people going through in just an hour or so, even is most of them were using free buses to the nearest Moscow subway station, provided by the festival. Luckily, at the expense of not hearing some enjoyable music, we went off ahead of the main wave or festival-goers -- not only those seven hundreds who were listening to Alex and Billy at the jazz stage, but mostly those thousands who've been waiting for the famous Arkhangelskoe estate fireworks after Brand New Heavies performance on the main stage.

Who could foresee that Monday would bring sad news on Esbjörn Svensson tragically passing away in a diving accident on June 14. It is so painful to know that his concert at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow on May 30 will forever stay his final performance. And I've missed it, because I saw Esbjörn Svensson Trio, or e.s.t., performing in New York City last September and wanted my younger colleagues to go to Tchaikovsky's in my stead, so that they could see what I thought was Esbjörn Svensson's first concert in Moscow. Who knew it would also be his last?

Jazz.Ru #13/14

2008-05-27T20:35:00.004+04:00

So, Jazz.Ru #4/5-2008 (13/14) due out this Friday.
The band on the cover is Leonid Vintskevich Quartet. Leonid, the pianist, is the grey-headed guy in the center. A perfectly international band: Russian pianist, Russian sax player (Nick Vintskevich, who, BTW, is the pianist's son,) British bassist and Swedish drummer. They have a good album out (in Russia; will be released on Flat Five Records in the U.K. later this year.) Good music, too -- a mixture of Nordic/Slavic influences in jazz.
Inside we have interwievs with Bobby McFerrin, Ken Vandermark, Paul Winter, and much more. If you can read Russian, follow the link, there's more.

What'd I Say?

2008-05-18T23:49:00.004+04:00

I'm not a sports fan. Not at all. Sports have nothing to do with what I do.
But.
Russia just won the World Ice Hockey Championship. Three minutes ago. In Canada. Against Canada.

Go bears!

Best description of a Russian tour I've ever read

2008-05-17T16:11:00.002+04:00

Steve Kershaw, British bass player and Greek mythology scholar, writes about his Russian tour (April, 2008.) Marvellous.

"...[we] take some critical comment ('I really like the music, but it would sound much better with a trumpet instead' – why do the drunkest people always know best?), and, once Nick had extracted himself from the adoring pale-skinned, almond-eyed beauties and I'd made my escape from a hairy, malodorous, red-faced alcoholic, we enjoy a vodka-fuelled afterparty in Petter's hotel room after tramping the streets of the city for an hour in a vain search for an open bar."

BTW Leonid Vintskevich, the piano player, and Steve did a really good job -- I mean their new CD, "Songs From The Black Earth" (Flat Five, 2008.) 50.000 copies sold in Russia (well, there's a trick: technically, in Russia it was not a standalone release, but a supplement to a popular magazine, Avtozvuk a.k.a. The Auto Sound.) We're running Vintskevich/Kershaw quartet on the cover of the next Jazz.Ru issue.
The current issue, #3'2008, is in stores right now, and its cover features Russian big band tycoon Anatoly Kroll -- he turned 65 this April:

2008-03-31T23:40:00.005+04:00

Spaso House is a beautiful old building, an early 19th century noble's city mansion in downtown Moscow; for the last 75 years, it is also the U.S. ambassador's residence (not the same as American embassy, which is about a mile away.) Every time somebody would bring a significant American artist to Russia, the U.S. ambassador would give a reception at the Spaso House, and the artist would perform in front of some three hundred "dignitaries" (if you pardon my French) -- U.S. embassy officials (the ambassador and his wife or girlfriend would sit in the middle of the front row,) prominent American expats working in Moscow, plus Muscovite mass media people, a dozen or so local artists from the same field as the artist on the stage, and a bunch of local "beau monde" -- TV personalities, mass culture producers, Duma (Russian parliament) members, all of them with their +1's, etc. Some of the crowd mean business and not only eat nice buffet-style hors d'oeuvres after the proformance, but also socialize with each other and/or with the Americans.
Today it was Paul Winter with his Consort and the great Dmitry Pokrovski Ensemble. Even 12 years after Pokrovski himself passed away, the Ensemble is still the greatest Russian folk choir - ten singers who come as close to the authentic, down-to-earth Russian folklore as it's possible in the day and age when the very environment where the said folklore was existing before the 1917 revolution is now long gone, forgotten, damned and cursed, then cried for, bemoaned, but not revived -- because the old Russian village and its way of life, once the core feature of traditional Russian society, is now dead, period.
Dmitry Pokrovski Ensemble has nothing to do with jazz -- except that they were the first in Russia to perform with an American "world jazz" band (I mean Paul Winter Consort) 22 years ago, and what they did together was not a mechanical addition of jazzy solos and funky rhythm section to the core of Russian folk singing, but the kind of an entity that is way more than just the mechanical sum of its part -- the thing we call Magic, the thing that cannot be described just in pure musicology terms, the thing that takes your breath, and reminds you that you are not a machine that hears sound waves by its biological microphones called ears, you are a human being, you are so human that you can literally cry when they play and sing, God bless them.
They toured the U.S. back then, 25 cities in total, and only played two concerts in Moscow (and recorded the then-famed "Earthbeat", 1987 Grammy nominee.) Now's the time to bring it all back home: Paul Winter Consort and Dmitry Pokrovski Ensemble are now touring Russia, and they will perform at the Moscow International House of Music on April 10, and Paul just promised me an interview during their soundcheck on the 10th, and -- we were just happy to hear that music. Because it's more than "four American new age/world jazz musicians play along with a Russian folk choir." It's Music, man. It's music.

This is how it sounded 22 years ago ("Down in Belgorod", recorded in 1986, (c) Living Music/Melodiya, 1987) - now: subtract syntheziser, subtract bass guitar, add acoustic piano and bass; percussion replaces drum set; voices & sax still the same.
mp3 96 kbps, solely for educational purposes

Did I say great?

2008-03-27T23:44:00.000+03:00

So, well, we went to see pianist Misha Tsiganov in harper Hendrik Meurkens' band at the Union of Composers last Tuesday.

What can I say? It was good!

On the picture, taken by Anna next day, when we went to have some sushi on Tverskaya (Moscow's main street): (left) two towers of the Kremlin; (center) Misha Tsiganov, holding Jazz.Ru magazine in one hand and (right) Cyril Moshkow in another hand.

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

2008-03-25T17:11:00.001+03:00

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.