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 On
December 2, 2006, we celebrate the 60th birthday of the great
jazz accordion player, Vladimir Danilin. He started to play
accordion at the dances in his native town of Lyubertsy, near
Moscow, in late 1950s, and by the early 1960s he was already
playing jazz clubs in Moscow. Jazz in its pure mainstream form
was (and still is) all what he was interested in. This was also
true when Vladimir Danilin switched to the piano, and spent many
years in the country's most popular jazz big band of the late
1970s- early 80s, Oleg Lundstrem Orchestra. And this stayed
true, when Danilin returned to his primary instrument, the
accordion, in early 1990s and continues on this instrument ever
since.
One of Danilin's best recordings has been released in 1999, it
was called "Once I Loved".
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Vladimir Danilin, as we listen to a
fragment of that album. Vladimir Danilin plays a Russian jazz
tune, based on the 1950s Russian hit "Tri goda ty mne snilas",
"Three years I dreamed about you", written by composer Nikita
Bogoslovsky. Yakov Okun plays Rhodes piano, Alex Rostotsky, who
also produced this record, plays electric bass, Eduard Zizak
plays drums, and Vladimir Danilin is on accordion.
On the photo: Vladimir Danilin, 2006
DOWNLOAD: mp3
8.51 Mb or Windows media 2.18 Mb
 On
October 27, 2006, Russia's most popular jazz musician turned 45.
His name is Igor Butman.
He plays saxophones.
Igor has a rare gift: he is not only a brilliant performer, he
is also an able promoter of his own work and of the genre in
general. He easily makes friends with musicians, politicians,
businessmen, and media people, and thus pushes jazz as a genre
further than it has ever been in Russia. He is the first Russian
jazz musician to release albums on Universal label, and a
successful jazz event producer: his Triumph of Jazz festival,
held each February since the year 2000, is a must-see on Moscow
jazz scene. Igor Butman also runs Moscow's premier jazz club,
called Le Club, the only jazz club in Russia ever mentioned in
Down Beat's Top 100 jazz clubs in the world.
Igor Butman already was the #1 tenor sax player in the Soviet
Union when, in 1987, he decided to go to the United States to
accomplish his jazz education. He studied at Berklee College of
Music in Boston, made friends with everybody, then moved to New
York City and made friends with everybody there, while
performing extensively on the club scene. Igor's thick phonebook
allowed him to organize the ongoing flow of American jazz
musicians to Russia, when Butman returned to his native country
in the late 1990s. He was also the first Russian jazz bandleader
to present his own superb jazz big band in New York City, where
Igor Butman Big Band opened the 2003 jazz season at the Lincoln
Center by playing the big band battle with Wynton Marsalis's
Orchestra.
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Igor Butman. We also listen to the
sax man in a straight-ahead jazz acoustic quartet setting
("Prophecy" album, Universal, 2004). Anton Baronin, piano;
Vitaly Solomonov, bass; Eduard Zizak, drums; Igor Butman, tenor
saxophone.
On the photo: Igor Butman, 2005
DOWNLOAD: mp3
11 Mb or Windows media 3 Mb
 Born
in Ukraine in 1962, Andrei Kondakov studied music theory at Dnepropetrovsk Music School in Ukraine, jazz piano at
Petrozavodsk Music College in Northern Russia and classical
composition at St.Petersburg Conservatory. While still living in
Petrozavodsk, Andrei co-led a quartet with guitar player Andrei
Ryabov which toured the Soviet Union with American sax man
Ritchie Cole, was hailed by Soviet jazz critics and rated first
among Soviet jazz combos in late 80s - early 90s.
In 1992, Kondakov started his solo career where he concentrated
on his ability to write bright beautiful melodies and to perform
them with all the brilliance the great classical Russian piano
school can provide. He plays with American musicians a lot, both
in Russia and in the U.S. Right now Andrei is performing in New
York City with Lenny White, Eric Alexander and others.
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Andrei Kondakov. We also listen to a live recording,
made in Siberia in 1997, of Andrei Kondakov performing one of
his beautiful tunes, called "Deserted Part". Igor Butman is on
tenor sax, Eddie Gomez is on acoustic bass, Lenny White is on
drums.
On the photo: Andrei Kondakov, 2006
DOWNLOAD: mp3
12.1 Mb or Windows media 3.1 Mb
 A
few weeks ago we celebrated the 65th birthday of one of the most
popular jazz musicians in Russia, guitar player Alexey Kuznetsov.
Like most of the most popular jazz musicians, he is not an
innovator or a radical experimenter. He is a true keeper of the
traditions of jazz guitar, and a great educator who keeps the
art of playing the jazz guitar alive.
Alexey Kuznetsov appeared on the jazz stage in the 1960s, in a
duo with an older guitar player Nikolay Gromin. It wasn't until
the late 1970s, when Kuznetsov became less associated with
Gromin and more appreciated as a leader. In was in the 1980s
when he enjoyed a large popularity: the Soviet Nationalwide TV
even featured this jazz guitar player in a 60-minutes film which
was aired more than once.
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Alexey Kuznetsov. We also listen to a
1987 live recording of Victor Young's "Stella By Starlight"
performed by his trio with electric bass player Alex Rostotsky
and American drummer Daniel Martin, from Kuznetsov's 1987 live
album, "Live In The Olympic Village", just reissued by Melodiya
label.
On the photo: Alexey Kuznetsov, 2002 (by Cyril Moshkow)
DOWNLOAD: mp3
6.81 Mb or Windows media 1.74 Mb
 Flugelhorn
player Guerman Lukianov is a legend of Russian jazz scene: since
1962, his every next group or album rates among the most
listened to -- and most disputed -- jazz recordings in Russia.
Guerman Lukianov just turned 70: he was born in 1936 in
St.Petersburg, to a navy officer family. Lukianov studied at
Moscow State Conservatory of Music with the great composer Aram
Khachaturian. Guerman's interest in jazz made him to abandon the
career in classical music. His early 1960s experiments in small
groups (especially his "bassless trios") made him a reputation
of a strong jazz composer and a highly non-standard,
off-the-beaten-paths performer.
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Guerman Lukianov. We also listen to a
1967 live recording of Guerman Lukianov's bassless trio:
Vladimir Vassilkov - drums, Leonid Chizhik - piano, and Guerman
Lukianov - flugelhorn. The theme's structure and intonation
imitates a typical Russian prayer, the kind of a prayer you can
hear in any Russian Orthodox Christian church. Remember, this
was 1967, the height of Soviet rule in Russia. Communists never
liked Christian symbols. That's why even an instrumental piece
called "The Prayer" could not make it to the vinyl in the Soviet
Union, given the fact that the record production was controlled
by the Communist government. Guerman Lukianov knew that he should
rename his piece, and that arguing about that was pointless.
That's why he called this piece "Pointless Talks."
On the photo: Guerman Lukianov, 2005 (by Cyril Moshkow)
DOWNLOAD: mp3
8.04 Mb or Windows media 2.06 Mb
 The
earliest jazz records in the Soviet Union were made in 1928, but
the first really significant ones - in 1937-1938. Among those recordings, the most interesting were cut
by the big band led by the piano player Alexander Tsfasman
(1906-1971).
By 1926 he had his own jazz band, the first jazz band ever to
perform live on the government-owned Moscow radio the next year,
and the first Soviet jazz band to be recorded (1928).
But it was only after a nine-years break, in 1937, when Tsfasman's big band made its
most significant recordings.
Surprisingly, Alexander Tsfasman, being quite busy as the
director of the Soviet Radio Committee Jazz Band, never left his
parallel career, that of a classical piano player, and as such,
performed extensively in Moscow's best concert halls. He was the
first Soviet piano player to perform George Gershwin's "Rhapsody
in Blue" in public in 1946. It was Tsfasman who was chosen by
the great classical composer Dmitry Shostakovich to perform his
new piano concerto in 1951. But it was jazz music that made
Tsfasman widely popular in the country.
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Alexander Tsfasman. We also
listen to one of Alexander Tsfasman's first recordings, made in
1937. One of his most important jazz tunes, a manifesto of a
certain sort, this tune is called "Sounds of Jazz".
On the photo: Alexander Tsfasman, 1938 (archive)
DOWNLOAD: mp3
5.62 Mb or Windows media 1.44 Mb
 Nobody
took trumpeter
Valery Ponomarev any serious in Moscow in the
late 1960s: the older players weren't impressed by his style,
heavily influenced by 1950s-1960s hard boppers, such as Clifford
Brown, Lee Morgan and Freddy Hubbard. Can anybody possibly
imagine how surprised they were when Valery emigrated to the
United States and, in 1977, it was him - not them, who regarded
themselves as bigger stars in Russia! - who became a member of
Art Blakey Jazz Messengers! Ponomarev spent four years in the
famed hard bop super group, where he preceded a younger trumpet
player called Wynton Marsalis. Since 1980s, Valery Ponomarev
leads a successful solo career in New York City. He had released
several good albums for Reservoir Records.
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Valery Ponomarev; we also listen to
Valery performing his original "I Was Afraid You'd Never Call
Me" with Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone and Kenny Barron on
piano, as well as with Essiet Essiet on the bass and Victor
Jones on drums ("Profile," Reservoir, 1991)
On the photo: Valery Ponomarev, 2003 (by Cyril Moshkow)
DOWNLOAD: mp3
9.5 Mb or Windows media 2.45 Mb
EARLIER IN RUSSIAN JAZZ PODCAST:
 Piano,
vibraphone, flugelhorn, tenor saxophone, as well as acoustic
bass and drums -- and this would still be not the complete list
of instruments played by David Goloshokin.
David is now 62. He lives in St.Petersburg, Russia. He is the
director of
St.Petersburg State Jazz Philharmonic Hall - unique
concert venue in downtown St.Petersburg. It is known as the
stronghold of traditional jazz in Russia, primarily because this
is its director's taste in music: David Goloshokin regards
himself as a true defender of mainstream straight-ahead jazz in
Russia...
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of David Goloshokin; we also listen to
David performing "Stardust" on violin with all-star rhythm
section of Mulgrew Miller (piano,) Bucky Pizzarelli (guitar,)
John Clayton (bass) and Lewis Nash (drums.)
On the photo: David Goloshokin, 2005 (by Cyril Moshkow)
DOWNLOAD: mp3
8.2 Mb or Windows media 2.1 Mb
 Pianist
Leonid Vintskevich is one of those musicians who never wait for an opportunity
to come, but rather produce the opportunities themselves. He lives outside of
Moscow, in a small Russian city called Kursk. This is definitely not the place
where things happen in Russian jazz. Or this was. Since 1997, Leonid Vintskevich
produces a jazz festival in his native city. Since 1998, it's not just a humble
local jazz festival, it's a tour, or a moveable feast, that covers up to 12 or
even 15 major cities in European part of Russia every year. Leonid brings to
play American, European and Japanese jazz musicians, and plays himself a lot -
either with his old partner Saarsalu, who comes all the way from Estonia for the
occasion, or with another Vintskevich - Leonid's son, sax player Nikolai
Vintskevich...
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Leonid Vintskevich; we also listen to
Vintskevich's "Village Music" as performed in a duo of
Leonid and Nikolai Vintskevich.
On the photo: Leonid Vintskevich, 2006 (by Cyril Moshkow)
DOWNLOAD: mp3
10 Mb or Windows media 2.6 Mb
 All-Music
Guide on Roman Kunsman: "...producer Hank O'Neal attributes
the late Roman Kunsman's lack of commercial success to the fact
that he "was never in the right place at the right time."
O'Neal speaks the truth; although Kunsman was a talented alto
saxophonist, flutist, and composer, he never received the sort
of break that would have made him better known in the jazz
world..."
In this week's Russian Jazz Podcast, Jazz.Ru editor Cyril
Moshkow tells the story of Roman Kunsman; we also listen to
Kunsman's "Ray of Darkness" as performed live at the 1967 Moscow
Jazz Festival by Oleg Lundstrem Orchestra.
On the photo: Roman Kunsman, 2002 (by Cyril Moshkow)
DOWNLOAD:
mp3
7.9 Mb or Windows media 2 Mb
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