Vyacheslav Ganelin

Vyacheslav " Slava " Ganelin (Russian Вячеслав Ганелин, born December 17, 1944 in Kraskow in Moscow) is an Israeli pianist, keyboardist, bandleader and composer of avant-garde jazz of Russian origin. He scored with his Ganelin trio of the most prominent representatives of Russian and Lithuanian jazz scene of the 1970s and 1980s.

Life and work

Ganelin was born in a village near Moscow; his parents moved, how many Russians at this time, in the 1950s the Baltic states. At age four he started to play the piano, at age 14 he took first Komponierversuche. He then studied at the Conservatory in Vilnius, formed student big bands and joined the youth club " Neringa cafe " on. After studying Ganelin was head of the Russian drama theater in Vilnius and played jazz in trio formations.

In the late 1960s they started cooperation with the drummer Vladimir Tarasov; her duo succeeded at the jazz festival in Gorky 1970, the breakthrough in Soviet jazz scene. A year later was joined by saxophonist Vladimir Tschekassin, making the Ganelin trio emerged; In 1976 took place the first appearance abroad of the trio at the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree ( LP Poljazz ). Shortly after this concert, their first record was released in the USSR on the Melodiya label, Con Anima and Concerto Grosso. It was followed by several tours in Eastern and later also in Western European countries, as in 1981 by Italy in 1983 by Romania; In 1984 she visited the United Kingdom and the United States in 1986, where she worked with the Rova Saxophone Quartet appeared together ( heard on the double CD San Francisco Holidays ) in San Francisco.

The trio consisted Ganelin to 1987; then left Ganelin the USSR and emigrated to Israel. There he adopted the name Slava. Yet emerged duet recordings of Tarasov and Tschekassin on Leo in the late 1980s and early 1990s; Ganelin founded in his new home a trio ( with the old name Ganelin Trio) with the cellist and bassist Victor Fonarev and drummer Mika Markovich. 1992/93 took Ganelin the solo album On Stage ... Backstage for Leo Records on.

Ganelin also worked as a film and theater composer; he composed the music for the listed at the Bolshoi Theatre Opera The red-haired liar and the soldier and for the musical The devilish bride. One of his rare appearances as a sideman included the participation in the album Viennese Concert of Lithuanian saxophonist Petras Vysniauskas in 1989. Vysniauskas and drummer Klaus Kugel belong to existing since 1999 Ganelin Trio Priority, which in New York's Vision Festival 2007 a ​​high-profile appearance had.

The music of the Ganelin / Tschekassin / Tarasov Trio

After Bert Noglik the special characteristic of the music of the Ganelin trio " the stylistic insouciance " was on the one hand, on the other hand, the " development of large forms with compositional open spaces " as in the recordings or plates of the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of them on audio cassettes had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union, to be published in the West ( by Leo Feigin on the London label Leo Records) can.

The trio formed in 1971 by Ganelin created by Ian Carr a " kind of abstract music that came from the tradition of European free jazz movement of the late 1960s, but had their very own identity. In the music of the trio the composition played a very important role. Each longer work, every album was designed conceptually different and had a well-differentiated structure and instrumentation. The members of the trio played about 15 different instruments. Included were also parodic elements, children's songs and set pieces from Slavic folk music and classical music. "

Vladimir Tschekassin described this musical mixture thus: " Some elements we take from the jazz, others from the chamber music or folklore of various nations. Sometimes we also use the techniques of naive children, and everything will influence was not part of new combinations " Cook and Morton see parallels in the concerts of the trio with Roland Kirk, because Vladimir Tschekassin blew occasionally several instruments simultaneously.; to the theatricality of the Art Ensemble of Chicago - in the quieter, written-out passages - the Dave Brubeck quartet that played a major in the 1960s impact on the Soviet jazz.

The music of the trio Ganelin was very popular in the intellectual circles of the late USSR and aroused in the West the attention of the jazz scene. The Melody Maker wrote about the release of the concert live recording from Berlin, this was " one of the most exciting events, the free music 've ever brought to the stage ." The concert recording Live in East Berlin is one of the best shots Ganelins as well as the resulting two years later work Ancora da Capo.

Joachim -Ernst Berendt had expressed euphoric after the appearance of the trio at the Berlin Jazz Festival, " the Granelin trio produce the wildest, yet most organized free jazz I 've heard in years. " Critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton consider in Penguin Guide to Jazz Ancora da Capo as a " masterpiece" and Granelins role as " definitive performance". The live recordings were " monolithic intensity of expressing all of what is the best thing about this band, namely radiant expressivity, dense, passionate playing, humor and irony ."

Selected discographical notes

• Poco Loco A ( Leo, 1978)
• Catalogue: Live in East Germany ( Leo, 1979)
• Encores ( Leo, 1978-81 )
• Ancora da Capo ( Leo, 1980)
• Non Troppo ( has kind n.d. )