Go understand

The festival “Jazz in the Hermitage Garden” will bring together stars of American, Polish and Russian jazz

There are islands of stability in Moscow cultural life. I would even say stability on the basis of prosperity, excuse the “Pravdin” style. So, this is “Jazz in the Hermitage Garden”. It takes place this year on the penultimate weekend of August for—it’s scary to say—the eleventh time. And once again the festival will delight you with a good selection of interesting musicians playing mainly acoustic jazz. Music, according to people far from jazz, is “complex”, which certainly must be “understood”. Since over the course of ten years the audience of the festival has increased many times (in three days the Hermitage Garden receives the public like a good rock festival), it turns out that everything is in order with our understanding. The listeners are sincerely having fun, relaxing, lying on the grass and drinking beer, and some even dancing, but this, apparently, is that very mysterious “understanding of jazz” - a phrase that makes us jazz fans shiver uncomfortably.

This year, firstly, good weather is expected. Not like at the Olympics (it costs some money), but also not bad, more than twenty degrees Celsius and partly cloudy. We won't freeze.

Among the speakers are young people and legends. The program is extensive and it is impossible to list them all. I would stop at this one. First of all, Michal Urbaniak, the legendary Polish jazzman who made a career in the USA. Urbaniak plays various saxophones (soprano and tenor) and electric violin. He is not on the concert poster in the garden, but he will play as part of the festival at the Union of Composers club.

Another interesting person is the American black saxophonist Craig Handy, a representative of the middle generation of boppers. By the way, he performed with us several times, including as part of the Mingus Big Band, of which he is a long-time member. In the garden, Handy will perform with Mosgortrio, the ensemble of our amazing pianist Yakov Okun. Another good white American, pianist George Colligan, will also perform with the Russian cast. Colligan is known, in particular, for his long-term collaboration with Cassandra Wilson; he is also a sought-after sideman and the author of almost a dozen solo albums.

Also on the program are, among others, Polish pianist Adam Makowicz and the team of Austrian saxophonist Karl Heinz Micklin.

Alexander BELYAEV