- 853Recommend It!
- 8,623views
Interviews
Ivan Farmakovsky: Raising the Bar
Cyril Moshkow
Cyril runs Russia's jazz magazine and Web resource, Jazz.Ru, and writes extensively about jazz music for Russian and international publications."Currently, I'm preparing the material for my second album. I plan it [to be] very different—different setting, first of all: it's going to be a piano trio recording. But different music, too. I have chosen a selection of Russian / Soviet song classics from the 1940s - 1970s which I want to turn into jazz tunes.
"Playing in a trio setting is different; I alone decide how to interpret the tune, not depending on the partner soloists. [For] many years I have played with my Moscow trio—bassist Anton Revniouk and drummers Alex Mashin or Serguei Ostroumov—so I have some experience in this setting. And I'm sure that this material—old Russian songs—deserves such interpretation—those tunes are full of beauty. Some of them were quite jazzy from the very beginning, because the Russian composers who wrote them were influenced by American jazz music. They did not quote jazz licks or Broadway harmonies directly, the way 1930s Soviet jazz and "variety music" pioneers did, but you feel that they knew that music.
"I want to record that music, plus a few more of my originals, with an American rhythm section. I'm not yet at the stage when I can say who my prospective partners are, but I'm approaching this stage, as I'm planning the recording session in New York City this November [2009].
"My originals, which constituted the first album, didn't need an explanation to my American partners; the music I write is well inside the straight-ahead 'modern creative' jazz idiom. I am sure that the old Russian songs I'm planning to record for my second album are in there as well. I'm trying to hit two goals with one shot: for future Russian listeners, this music will appeal because they will know the original songs, and (hopefully) love my interpretations; for the worldwide audience, I'm just presenting some beautiful music. They may not be aware of its roots and origin, but I am sure they may be touched by the beauty of those Soviet songs."
Selected Discography
Ivan Farmakovsky, Next To The Shadow (Boheme Music, 2009)
Herman Lukianov, In Black And White (One Records, 2008)
Alexander Berenson, Life is a Purely Creative Process (Independent, 2003)
Feathered Serpent, Second Meditation (2003)
Photo Credits
Page 1: Gulnara Khamatova
Page 2: Vladrus
