Russian jazz
Jazz music began to be played in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s, around the same time that it was gaining popularity in the United States.
The introduction of the genre is often credited to Valentin Parnakh, a poet and choreographer inspired by American jazz performances he had seen during travels in Paris.
In 1928, Utesov toured Europe and attended performances of American jazz bands in Paris, which influenced his own style.
During the 1930s, Utesov and his band, called "Thea-Jazz" (a portmanteau of Theatrical Jazz) had a regular gig at the Marble Hall of the Kirov Palace of Culture in Leningrad.
[2] The disbandment of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians in 1932 brought a temporary reprieve for jazz in the Soviet Union.
[citation needed] Richard Stites writes:In the years of the "red jazz age" (1932–1936) European and Soviet bands were heard in dozens of cities.
... Utesov – musically far less gifted – was actually more popular than Tsfasman, partly because of the spectacular success of his comedy film Happy-Go-Lucky Guys, but mostly because his Odessa background and his circus and carnival road experience on the southern borscht belt gave him a clowning manner.
[5] S. Frederick Starr comments in his book on Soviet jazz that the band "played with a polish and precision any Western pop orchestra might have envied".
Tsfasman's Americanism and his unpopularity with the bureaucrats had disqualified him for the position of conductor, which went instead to Victor Knushevitsky, a capable musician with absolutely no feeling for jazz.
Knushevitsky's classical background and ignorance of jazz predisposed him to turn the band into a kind of chamber orchestra with saxophones.
Artists were marginalized, and some, like Eddie Rosner, faced imprisonment for attempting to leave the Soviet Union or for perceived political disloyalty.
[citation needed] Saxophonist and clarinetist Boris Midney formed a jazz quartet while studying classical music in the Soviet Union.
They were sponsored by American Friends of Russian Freedom, a CIA-linked organisation for Soviet defectors, who found them a manager in New York.
Arsenal [ru], founded by saxophonist Aleksei Kozlov, is considered the preeminent Jazz-rock fusion ensemble in USSR.
[citation needed] Georgy Garanian, an ethnic Armenian Russian jazz saxophone player, bandleader and composer, was the People's Artist of Russia in 1993.
In 2000, Garanian was nominated for a Grammy Award as a conductor of the famous Tchaikovsky orchestra for the double CD album "Oregon in Moscow", which had been made together with renowned American jazz group Oregon and produced by Pat Metheny Group's Steve Rodby.
