Specialist discusses contemporary Ukrainian jazz (02/06/05)

Specialist discusses contemporary Ukrainian jazz

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - If one were to do a Google search on the Internet for articles that contained the words "Ukrainian" and "borshch" on the one hand, and "Ukrainian" and "jazz" on the other, which would be expected to get more "hits" (resulting article links)?

Most Ukrainian Americans would bet on the borshch (or its Manischewitz spelling "borscht" or its other variant "borsch"). They would be wrong - very wrong.

In a recent test, the "Ukrainian" and "borshch" combination got 21,800 hits, "borscht" got 9,020, and "borsch" came in last with 3,560. "Ukrainian" and "jazz" got 157,000 hits - almost five times more than all of the borshch varieties combined.

How could there be so many instances of Ukrainian jazz on the Internet?

While our knowledge of the subject may be limited to the Ukrainian Canadian jazz pianist John Stetch and his music, Ukrainian jazz is on the rise - in Ukraine.

The fourth hit on the Ukrainian jazz search happened to be a lengthy report on www.jazzhouse.org written by Larry Appelbaum, a jazz specialist and senior studio engineer at the Library of Congress who recently visited Ukraine to discuss that art form with jazz musicians, composers, technicians, journalists, students and fans in Kyiv and Lviv. His visit on November 7-13, 2004, was organized by the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to launch its 2004-2005 "Open Lands" music project.

A week ago, on January 27, Mr. Appelbaum shared his experiences and played some examples of contemporary Ukrainian jazz during a lecture and discussion at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington organized by the Cultural Fund of The Washington Group.

To introduce the audience to the jazz of Ukraine, Mr. Appelbaum played a piece by guitarist Enver Izmailov as an example of what he characterized as "jazz born elsewhere, not in America" - Ukrainian jazz.

While Ukrainian jazz musicians are well-versed in American jazz classics, they are taking the genre in their own unique direction. And their original music, not widely known outside jazz aficionado circles at home, is almost completely unknown here.

The interest in it is developing, however. Enver Izmailov, for example, has performed at the jazz festival in Moscow, Idaho, and is due to return there, Mr. Appelbaum said. He added that when he played Mr. Izmailov's and other Ukrainian artists' CDs on his radio jazz show, "The Sound of Surprise," on WPFW-FM, he got phone calls from his listeners. Unfortunately, when they asked where they could buy these CDs, he had to admit that there was no outlet for them here.

Even in Ukraine, access to these recordings is spotty, and, more often than not in that part of the world, people listen to pirated copies of CDs. There was an indication that this may be changing, albeit slowly, Mr. Appelbaum said. Buying and possessing legitimate CDs was becoming "a new status symbol" in some quarters, he explained.

While in Kyiv and Lviv, he visited jazz clubs, attended jazz concerts, gave lectures, met with people and talked about whatever they wanted to talk about.

Mr. Appelbaum's first stop on arrival in Kyiv was at a smoky basement jazz club called Art Club 44, which happened to be presenting 44 bands in 44 hours non-stop.

Later he spoke about contemporary developments in jazz at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, where, among other questions, he was asked about "politics and jazz." It may have been appropriate in their environment, he said, but, unfortunately, American jazz artists do not get involved politically.

During a meeting with a group of journalists who write about jazz, one of the problems that came up was the lack of official or other forms of support for jazz in Ukraine. He later learned that this was an old Soviet-era malady - waiting for the someone from on-high to provide direction and funding. Mr. Appelbaum said his recommendation to them was to stop waiting for sponsorship "and just do it," whatever it was that they wanted to do. He cited as an example a non-profit collective he helped found in the Washington area that, without any backing or financial resources, has presented more than 100 concerts of improvised jazz music over the past seven years.

While in Kyiv, he gave interviews to the "Jazz-Peak" radio program and other journalists, visited the Lemma recording studio and heard a "very good" jazz quintet, Skhid Side. He also discussed another of his specialties, digital preservation of recorded music, with his counterparts at the Ukrainian National Library, who, he said, were doing "remarkable things on a scarce budget."

After a long overnight train ride to Lviv, Mr. Appelbaum had a session with a very engaging group of music students at the Lviv Music Academy. Later that evening he heard a group of them performing some second-rate music at a jazz club. They had good technique, he said, but they still had to learn "the difference between hip and corny." He expects that, in time, they would. To help them, he made copies of some of the CDs he recorded of selected leading contemporary American jazz musicians.

His visit to Lviv had a special meaning for Mr. Appelbaum, as his grandmother came from that area of Ukraine - from Mostyska, a town about 40 miles west of Lviv, near the Polish border.

While in Lviv, he also got to know avant-garde saxophonist and composer Yurii Yaremchuk, who on occasion played Duke Ellington blues and other "commercial music," as he termed it, but only for the money.

In the report posted on the Internet, Mr. Appelbaum singled out a few Ukrainian groups and soloists for developing "their own sounds, based on their own traditions and experiences": The Black Sea Trio (which includes the guitarist Mr. Izmailov), Skhid Side, pianist Leszek Mozdzir, vocalist Sasha Belina, an acid jazz group called "aby mc," and the "adventurous, creative improvised work" of Alexander Nesterov and Mr. Yaremchuk.

Mr. Appelbaum's trip to Ukraine happened to fall between the presidential votes in October and November, which launched the Orange Revolution. In the conclusion of his report he fondly recalled the conversations he had late into the night with friends on train rides between Lviv and Kyiv.

"I learned a lot from them," he wrote, "not only about the music scene in Ukraine, but about life and the changes their society is going through since the fall of the Soviet Union. I worry what might happen if the will of the people is thwarted in the upcoming election, as the majority of Ukrainians are neither docile nor ignorant."

"And if jazz represents freedom," he added, "Ukrainians clearly want more of both."

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