Music is not for fat

Russian jazz club is the best in the world. It sounds like a phantasmagoria, but this is pure true. In April, the authoritative American jazz portal All ABOUT Jazz summed up the voting TOP 100 Jazz Venues 2019 for the title of the best jazz platform of the world. In the first place, and even with a wide margin, was the Moscow club Alexei Kozlov ( Kozlov Club ) , leaving behind such eminent favorites as London Ronnie Scott ' S and New York Village Vanguard and Blue Note . Winners in this competition were chosen by readers All ABOUT Jazz -3901 voted took part in the online questioning in a few weeks. Of these, 511 people cast votes for the club of Alexei Kozlov.

The result was a surprise for absolutely everyone-both for those who started the competition, and for those who participated in it, but even for the leader and art director of the club Araik Akopyan-because his team barely managed to submit an application. The vote launched in October last year, and Kozlov’s club included in the race only in March 2019, but already very quickly burst forward and in a month ahead of the closest pursuer by 116 votes. “Contrary to some opinions, I do not think that this is a“ scam of the century ”, a biased victory or something like that,” Araik Akopyan argues with a pipe, with whom we talked in the club's club. “They even hinted at me:“ Do you understand that it will begin if you win? ” And a certain stink like “Putin, hackers and so on will begin. Russia again intervenes in American history.” I thought and said: “Do not care!” This is an absolutely voluntary step. We are really a very good club and a new generation club, where there are three scenes and at least three concerts a day on three floors. 105 events per month, chic equipment, sound and light. There is another reason for the victory - these are direct broadcasts , each of which is watched on average 200 thousand people, and they look around the world - in Europe, America, Ukraine; The guy from Indonesia recently wrote, he voted for us. In addition to the musicians who play with us voted, the audience, who goes to the club, voted, and also voted a certain number of online prostrate. ”

It is difficult to disagree with Araik Akopyan - the club is really very good. A three-story pub on Maroseyka is located in a minute of walking from the Kitay-Gorod metro. Three scenes work in it, on which not only jazz, but also perfect different music sounds-from medieval chants to hip-hop. “I fled for a long time from the word“ jazz, ”Akopyan explains,“ but for the sake of marketing I had to add it. Well, not a “rock club”, but a “music club” is a very smeared concept. A jazz club is an “essay”, and the Kozlova club is a music club where there are many different things, from art clock and ending with hip-hop and night vocal jam-sheets. I would call it a new generation club. ” The task of the “new generation club”, according to Araik, is to be able to concentrate the audience, which “will not spit from the difference of high -quality music of broad views”. Of course, over the years of existence there were cases of rejection by visitors of what was happening on the stage (the reaction from the series “What is it jazz?”) - but they are single.

Also, the “new generation club” is designed to destroy another established stereotype that jazz is an elite music and is listening to its specific (usually wealthy and age) audience. “Jazz never had any elitism, this is a certain legend,” says Akopyan. - Many tried to open an elite jazz club, but the “elite” is listening to a chanson. Jazz is listening to the intelligentsia, student and so on. This music is not “for the fat”, as Maxim Gorky once said, but for smart and deep people. Recently, we interviewed with Alexei Kozlov, and he said that during his performances [in the club] on Fridays he sees mainly young people who purposefully go to his concerts. Indeed, a lot of young people come, although the average age is 25-45 years. I rejoice, seeing 25-year-olds. These are unsuscitable youth, their ears and hearts are open, they are brought up on high -quality foreign and domestic music and are able to absorb various styles. ”

- The elite is listening to chanson. Jazz is listening to the intelligentsia and student.

The club of Alexei Kozlov was founded in May 2012 on the initiative of the ARTBeat Modern Music Fund in the Olympic sports complex, not far from the previous place of Akopyan’s work, the legendary venue of the Olympics-80, which many Moscow musicians are still with nostalgia. There, Araik was given complete freedom in the formation of the music program - in the end, the place quickly became popular and gained the status of a cult. In the Kozlov club, the art director and dictator Akopyan continued to bend his line and determine the musical policy, and pretty soon his fundamental began to bear fruit-“Kozlov’s requests were more than requests for all other jazz clubs. And I realized that the correct program solves everything. We did not put poppy megazoves, we put high -quality and for the most part non -profit content. As a rule, it was instrumental music. ”

The second scene appeared, but in December 2016 “the club closed, and thank God, because there was a bad location, the kitchen was limping, there was a fairly average design, it was impossible to do something in the interiors.” Six months later, Kozlov restarted Club on Maroseyka - and this is perhaps the main milestone in the short history of the institution. Much attention was paid to design and kitchen, which fundamentally contradicts the concept of eminent American and English clubs like the same Ronnie Scott ' S (60 years) and Village Vanguard (55 years old), which have long become a "thing in themselves." “In such institutions, the main thing is music. At first, Alexei Semenovich Kozlov was against the kitchen, since in all the world clubs where he performed, it is not, only snacks and alcohol with drinks on the menu. But in our country without a kitchen, it would be very difficult economically. The audience likes to eat during the concert - this is a component that had to be used. And thanks to the symbiosis with the Publife Group holding, which built a three -story pub, we got the fact that all the components immediately got into place - both the location and the interiors. Fortunately, I got at the construction stage and was also able to influence this: I attracted the famous illustrator Viktor Melamed, who introduced decorative elements that turned the pub into a club. ” At first, the institution occupied one floor, then Araik asked for a second scene - the “attic”, and in December 2018 and the third stage - The Beat . The performances take place daily on each scene, and there is not a single window in the schedule until the end of the year.

- For me, the concept of “Russian jazz” also always meant a bad American jazz. Until very serious composers and musicians appeared.

Kozlov CLUB is not the only Russian “club of a new model”, and in a detailed study of the issue, the first place in the world ranking does not look like such a surprise, rather, by the regularity: jazz in Russia has been experiencing a clear rise in recent years, which it was difficult to introduce a few years ago. And critics and connoisseurs are already seriously talking about the prevailing “Russian Jazz School”. “In many ways, this happened thanks to Igor Mikhailovich Butman, who is very moving jazz in Russia, and a heap of our other partners is, for example, the Jazz Manor, which has been holding the largest world-class jazz festival for the 16th year. So the stars came together that in Russia a jazz on the rise, the “large five” of Russian jazz clubs formed, and they are really in no way inferior to American, and in many ways they even surpass them, ”Araik is sure. In addition to the club Alexei Kozlov, this list includes an essay, Igor Butman's club, Jam (Andrei Makarevich Club) and the Union of Composers. However, the boom occurs rather contrary to the circumstances. Only niche editions write about jazz in Russia, it is practically none on television, and even the regular bits of the genre megazvezd or the performances of domestic legends - Alexei Kozlov (who, by the way, performs every Friday - and this is at 83 years old), Arkady Schilkloper, Anton Davidyanz and many others, as a rule, are drowning in the information stream.

Perhaps a loud victory Kozlov Club will be able to influence the situation, attract the attention of journalists and editors of radio and television programs for some time, but most likely they will quickly forget about it. However, in any case, it is a big precedent and an absolutely deserved victory. “We made the Americans, and I think we have something to be proud of,” Araik summarizes. - We always knew that we were the best in classical music, but we always had a complex that we were secondary in jazz. For me, the concept of “Russian jazz” also meant a bad American jazz. Until very serious composers and musicians who really make Russian jazz appeared. This is a modern, relevant author’s music with roots from Russia, absorbed both Russian classics and an ethnic of the peoples of the former USSR. When Robert Glazper came to Russia for the first time at the Olympics-80, when talking with him, it turned out that this tattooed black guy from New York knew Prokofiev, Shostakovich and even Sviridov very well. I was amazed, and I was incredibly pleasant to this depth of his knowledge of classical music. And we began to appear the deepest composers and improvisers - this is Dmitry Ilugdin, Anna Koroleva, Evgeny Lebedev, Alex Rostotsky, Vladimir Goloukhov, Anton Gorbunov and others. They highly hold the bar of Russian jazz. I think that this big victory will help us finally get rid of the complex that “jazz is not ours” and “we don’t know how to play basketball”. We can do everything if we want. ”

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