The time of the experiments has passed

Igor Butman is one of the most famous jazzmen of Russia, a saxophonist, graduate of a college of Berkeley, founder of Le Club'a.

Russian magazine: in your opinion, there are few or many jazz festivals now?

Igor Butman: You see, I love this music, and I love when a large hall is going. A large hall can be assembled by several artists. This is such a common practice when a musician, for example, invites his friends and they perform together. This is obtained by festival concerts. And there are not so many festivals, everything: the jazz triumph, the parliament-jazz, Bohemia-jazz, jazz in the Hermitage Garden-if we talk about large ones. And they are all quite different, designed for a different audience.

RG: In our country, jazz was not at first allowed to listen, in the perestroika years it was not up to it; In fact, it really, as it should, began to sound recently. How much is our audience used to jazz, how much can you listen to it?

I.B.: The public wants to listen to jazz, I'm sure. Gathering a large hall, such as "Russia", is very difficult. It costs some money, among other things. And the hall was complete on these festival days. The audience understands, thin. Everyone received their musical education in one way or another - some in educational institutions, some just listening to jazz, collecting records.

RG: How much does it have to adapt, popularize the material?

IB: I call those musicians whom, firstly, I love and who are able to interest our public. Honestly, I am not particularly attached to those forms of jazz, which are commonly called experimental. For example, it seems to me that the time of the experiment has already passed. Here is Arkasha Schilkloper ... I treat him with sympathy, he is the highest level of the musician, but he does not call what he does, jazz, this is balancing on the verge of different directions, sometimes the joining with an ethnic. But he is the best option. And theatricalization and tricks are all sorts ... All this is sometimes thought up, weak. There is another thing, what is more important to me more than unusual and any show - there is quality and charm. True jazz.

Then - I apologize to those who are configured Puritanski, but we have a commercial project. We need to justify the event. We cannot engage in charity. We cannot bring even a magnificent, say, a musician-experimenter, if we know that he will not collect people. Such performers find their sites and their own public. There is a cultural center a house, there is a Central House of Artists. We have a different audience, different and performers. We do not bother each other, this is normal. If we invite musicians, we need to pay them. Five to six people will come to the experimenters. A huge hall will gather on a slightly lighter genre. Yesterday, at the Gino Vanelli concert, someone at the end began to leave-yes, for someone this is not jazz. But on the other hand, there were a huge number of fans of Vanelli, who came specifically for him.

Joe Locke, Evgeny Maslov, Freddy Cole, the same Vanelli - I do not think that this is such a simplified adapted music. Or, at the festival, the parliament-jazz was played by David Sanborn, George Duke, El Jarro. Pops performers? To some extent - of course! But what quality their performance, what magnificent musicians they are.

RG: You started talking about different audiences at different festivals.

IB: Yes, of course, there are tasks of one festival, there are tasks of another. In the Hermitage Garden, I am experimenting all the time, once played the program that BIG-Band and I did not rehearse. There is still such a moment, I’ll say completely honestly: not everything can play our orchestra ... Some experimental things do not lie down, to something, we probably have not grown yet. Sometimes there is not enough skill to experiment. And there are festivals more massive. We need to make people go, we need to somehow accustom people! Jazz should not be such a scarecrow as you know, in due time - if the girl will say: “Let's go, listen to jazz,” then that's all, consider - the acquaintance is over. Now they are interested in jazz, perceive him much more favorable.

RJ: How do you bring musicians? It is clear that if these are your friends and former fellow practitioners, they go at your invitation willingly. And how open are those jazzmen that you personally are not familiar with?

IB: I am now inviting a lot of musicians who are not personally familiar with. Some tradition has already developed. We have become another country, and the charm and some exotic of Russia - it attracts! So, for example, I really wanted to go to India, and I am terribly glad that it succeeded. And the musicians come, we find opportunities and pay them their usual fees, and they receive a wonderful audience - sensitive, susceptible. In Russia, the best audience is that you didn’t have to hear this?

The conversation was led by Anna Nemzer