KPFA-FM Music Dept. ➔ Morning Concert: Alexander Kan: Mr. New Music USSR, 1 of 2

Analog Audio


Event Type
Interview and Music
Origin
KPFA
Identifier
MC.1988.11.11.A
Program Series
Morning Concert
Program Length
123 min
Part
1 of 2
Dates
1988-11-11 | broadcast
| 1988-11-11 | created
Description
When the ROVA Saxophone Quartet toured the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, it was the enterprising and irrepressible Alexander Kan who invited the group and organized the visit against improbable odds. In 1988 Charles Amirkhanian turned the tables and invited Mr. Kan to the KPFA studio for a discussion. At the time, Mr. Kan was the leading Soviet producer of new music, avant-garde jazz, and experimental rock. The founder of the Leningrad Contemporary Music Club, (which throughout the late 1970s until it was banned in the 1980s, served as a solitary bastion of artistic free expression), is joined by Larry Ochs of ROVA, as they wend their way through an artistic motherlode of unofficial recordings made in performance during the 1980s. Musical selections heard range from free jazz performances by Aleksander Rjabov, Vladimir Chekasin, Sergeĭ Kurëkhin, and Anatoly Vapirov, an avant-garde symphony by Armenian composer Avet Terterian, and experimental rock by bands Alisa and Strange Games. Charles Amirkhanian interviews Kan about the role of radio in the USSR, as well as opening the phone lines for listeners interested in living conditions behind the Iron Curtain.
Genres
Jazz
Avant-garde
Musical Selections
Dear Mary [an arrangement of an Estonian folk tune] (5:34) / Aleksander Rjabov -- Minaret (3:05) / Boomerang Jazz Ensemble -- [live performance, possibly from the “Exercises” LP] (14:14) / Vladimir Chekasin & Sergeĭ Kurëkhin
Performers
Aleksander Rjabov, clarinet (Dear)
Tiĭt Paulus, guitar (Dear)
Boomerang Jazz Ensemble: (Minaret)
Jury Parfionov (sp?), trumpet (Minaret)
Vladimir Chekasin, reeds, saxophone, cymbal (live)
Sergey Kuryokhin, piano, drums (live)
Subjects
Avant-garde (Music)
Jazz
Acknowledgment
Funding for the preservation of this program made possible through a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts.