At my age Daddy listened to jazz which Soviet ideologues branded as “moneybag music,” so listening to this music was another way to show social protest.
This music found its way through the iron curtain, reaching eager ears through KGB jamming stations. And every time people were delighted to hear the opening lines in the familiar beloved sonorous baritone: “This is Time for Jazz on the Voice of America...” His was a challenge touching a sensitive nerve in the hearts of all Soviet young men and women. It was as though they were fingering another LP smuggled from the West (all such records were confiscated at Soviet customs; when mailed, the recipient would be summoned to the local militia precinct, read a harsh lecture on the perils of anti-Soviet propaganda and shown the LP which would then be smashed against the desk sergeant’s knee...).
Sometimes I think that jazz was at its prime in the Soviet Union during all those years of selfless bottomless love for “overseas music.” It is not very popular these days, not in Ukraine. I wanted an explanation, so I turned to Oleksiy Kohan, “Music Fun Hour” radio host, perhaps Ukraine’s number-one jazz expert.
Q.: So what is your expert opinion?
A.: I think that the popularity of jazz in the Soviet Union in that period should by explained by the forbidden fruit syndrome. Some of us still remember propaganda slogans readings something “He Loves Jazz Today and Turns Traitor Tomorrow,” “By Playing Jazz You Play into the Enemy’s Hand.” And mind you, this anti-jazz campaign was backed by the government, in every way. I don’t remember who called that period the “time for straightening out saxophones,” but I think it very well said. But then they stopped straightening them out, there was plenty of jazz of music, the public was fed up and no longer interested.
Q.: Where do you think real jazz music starts and ends?
A.: I don’t know and I don’t think that anyone will tell you exactly. I have been with jazz for the past 25 years and I have never met a single person capable of giving a precise formula. Many consider that Beethoven composed music with a lot of elements of jazz. Following this logic, the same is very much true of Rachmaninoff and Ravel, because a lot of jazz musicians are known to have been inspired by their compositions. What I mean, it’s not worth trying to find out where jazz music starts and ends. Once a reputed jazz critic announced that the emergence of Charlie Parker was tantamount to the death of real jazz music. And his opinion was shared by many at the time. Now we can say he was wrong. He really goofed. I keep telling myself that jazz music is where this music feels good and prospers. Why do we have so little jazz music in Kyiv? Probably because this kind of music does not feel and prosper in this city. Much as I respect our Kyiv musicians, I think that they have spent more time trading dirty gossips about each other than producing good music. This comes first. Number two: Ukraine has been notably conservative in almost every respect, music included. During Soviet times good musicians always wanted to get a job in Moscow (they could not count on a career in the West, of course).
Our jazzmen had no sense of solidarity, so every international music festival held in Ukraine - there have been plenty! - left local talent in the shadows. Sometimes they tell me that all this is of minor importance, but I am personally convinced that a good musician’s creative visage is made up of precisely such trifles. This constantly reminds me of the Jamboree Jazz festival in Warsaw. The Herbie Hancock Quartet finished its number and all the other jazz stars waited their turn in the wings because the stage was now dominated by Maynard Fergusson’s Big Band with musicians aged between 16 and 20. You should see the Hancock people cheering them and such moral support counted a lot, considering the difference between the kids and the jazz lions! I have never seen anything like that in my own country. Thus, one won’t find the kind of jazz music one could watch and hear in Kryvy Rih or Zaporizhzhia not so many decades ago. Yes, there was the Mriya jazz club in the 1960s, a rare exception to the rule. Today, musicians once lauded as heroes of the saxophone-straightening-out saga are dying en masse, mostly because of drinking problems. By and large, a jazz musician is now regarded as a unstable, unestablished rarity.
Volodymyr Symonenko, President of the Ukrainian Jazz Musicians’ Association, passed away recently, and his death turned another page in Ukrainian jazz annals. And the next page was frighteningly blank. That man had done an incredible amount to advance jazz music in Ukraine.
Q.: I have noticed that jazz can be discussed with any degree of expertise only by people having something to do with music. Am I right?
A.: Sure. Jazz is mostly listened to and appreciated by people with some musical training. Good music can only be valued by people close to music. After all, the times dot the i’s and cross the t’s. I might as well quote from Billboard: jazz is favored by 1.25% and classical music by 2% of the populace...
Q.: Would you please enlarge on your “Music Fun Hour”?
A.: This radio program has been in existence since 1992. Most of my listeners are musicians. We all know that there is little one can expect from government-run channels by way of enlightenment and entertainment, so I can be rightfully proud of having kept my program alive for the past six years. I have received some 3,000 listeners’ letters, among them a few dozen saying that “Music Fun Hour” has kept them from committing a suicide or otherwise helped them at a time of ordeal. I am also proud of that.
John Coltrane said that you’ll be a real musician only when you play as though it were the last time in your life, be it a live performance or studio recording. Trite as it may sound, I wish we could do everything that way in Ukraine, then people would live much better.







