There is no nutritious environment

Dmitry Ukhov is a musical critic who can easily be called both a musicologist and cultural scientist, chairman of the Moscow Association of Jazz journalists, a laureate, among other things, the 1999 Bohemia -Dzhaz award.

Russian magazine: What do you think, the history of jazz in Russia is a natural or unnatural path of development? (That is-at first it was forbidden with us, listened from under the floors, and now he has become a classic, and not everyone listens to him, only the elementary musicians.)

Dmitry Ukhov: Jazz is part of all world culture, and the attitude towards it was/is the same as to any other music - Victor Gorodinsky in the propaganda "music of spiritual poverty" pays him less attention than dodecafonia (which, unlike jazz - he knew). For example, the “dudes” was not even criticized by jazz - but for some “boogies -wool”, and not suspecting what it is. Just during the period directly preceding the beginning of the Cold War and the end of the anti-Hitler coalition, Bugi-Vuhi boogies were the personification of everything incomprehensible in someone else's (mass) culture (in our yard in the 50s it was believed that Coca-Cola was a strong alcoholic drink). A curious conclusion can be done by reading "Jazz. From Leningrad to St. Petersburg, Vladimir Feiertag: in the 30-40s of the" jazz "people planted primarily those who did something else except music (such as the legendary Kolbasyev , who has nothing to do with the character, which was displayed in the film focus under the name" We are from jazz ").

RG: Jazz became the music of quite "elite" (festivals - events are not cheap, leakis - an expensive institution). These entertainment are not available to everyone. How much now, in your opinion, musicians have to simplify the material, adapt it to the modern public? How do you evaluate the program of the fourth festival "Triumph Jazz" now ?

D.U.: This "triumph" is the least interesting of all four. The invitation of Gino Wannelli is a mistake. At many festivals, it is customary to enter and get out of the hall-this is normal, I always like something less, something more, but in order to leave the headline, as they left Vannelli, by the way, an interesting artist (in his genre)! Well - Igor Butman took fire on himself, wedging with his "Fill In" into the finished arrangements of Wannelli. But Joe Locke and Tommy Smith were a discovery for the audience that was on jazz. A pleasant surprise - Evgeny Maslov in the Butman's quartet - and the fact that Maslov did not spend twelve years in America in vain, and the fact that his own and worthy rehearsed things played, not “ball” standards, as is usually the case. And Freddie Cole is an example of what we never had - a quiet and calm "club" musicization.

To simplify and adapt something - in the nature of professional art (musical publishers around about the First World War lived at the expense of potpourri on topics from operas in four hands). The problem is different - there is no nutritious environment for the development of talented people, with creative inclinations. And jazz education in professional educational institutions is the same, to put it mildly, conservative as teaching academic music. On the shares of the "Round Quartet", for example, there are only friends and fellow practitioners of Alexei Kruglov (by the way, a graduate of the Jazz Faculty of RAM named after the Gnesins), despite the fact that he works with popular Russian literature - from Yesenin to Bulgakov.

RG: How do you estimate the number of festivals now - there are many or few?

D.U.: The traditional list (jazz triumph, parliament-jazz, bohemian jazz) can be continued-for example, low-budget "jazz voices", new improvisation music in the "house". And still it is not much, it is infinitely small. And all of them are far from the people - except for the Hermitage and free performances of the Entreprise of the Ivanov brothers the other day. In Moscow (not counting the region) they live more to the people than in Switzerland or Belgium. But five times fewer festivals, jam-shyshnov and the like. In Montrea, along with the actual pop (more precisely, Quality Pop), several dozen beigs protrudes (without a fee) at once. And only the company Claude Nobs (the organizer of Montreus) TCB produces more CDs more than the whole of Russia.

RSA: Why did jazz turn out to be (and was it?) To one degree or another, music "for the elite situation" (the anniversary of the NTV, which took place under the sign of jazz; on the RTR in this case, would pop music)?

D.U.: We have the social significance of jazz - striving for a zero mark. NTV and other bohemia, the new Russians simply adopt the Western standards in which Jazz has long found its place - the sound background of the mid -secular party. It is significant that the company, which purchased the Jazz Ken Burns series in 2001, promised to show it continuously during the year on different state channels - but, it seems that even the “culture” refused the series. By the way, pushing jazz from Prime Time on "after midnight", closer to erotica.

And about the pompous GCZ "Russia" with its disgusting acoustics, purchased "stars" underfoot, geographical proximity to power, which has nothing to do with creativity, should not be said. And the bourgeois Smooth Jazz there is a place. It is unlikely that any of the "politicians" (with the exception of about the same as all over the world, the percent of the born lovers of jazz - like Bill Clinton or Clint Eastwood), for example, went to David Sanborn - an artist performing in The Knitting Factory, and Gato Barmeli - not the author of the last tango in Paris.

The conversation was led by Anna Nemzer