Sergei Anatolyevich Kurjochin

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Sergei Anatoljewitsch Kurjochin (also Sergey Kuryokhin , Russian Сергей Анатольевич Курёхин ; born June 16, 1954 in Murmansk ; † July 9, 1996 in Saint Petersburg ) was a Russian pianist , multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and composer of avant-garde jazz . With his bands like Pop Mechanics, he was one of the most prominent representatives of the Russian and Lithuanian jazz scene of the 1980s and 1990s.

Live and act

Kuryochin came to Leningrad in 1971 , where from an early age he showed an independent spirit and nonconformity that led to his being expelled from both the Leningrad Conservatory and the Cultural Institute. During his school days he played in rock bands, but turned to jazz under the influence of the music of McCoy Tyner and John Coltrane , which he had heard on Radio Free Europe . According to him, it was also the saxophonists Anthony Braxton , Evan Parker and his Russian colleagues Vladimir Tschekassin and Anatoli Wapirow who had a major influence on him.

Kurjochin became known in 1977 through his participation in Wapirow's band; then he worked with Chekassin and was the keyboardist of Boris Grebenchtschikows rock band Aquarium , with whom he recorded the albums Treugolnik ( Dreieck ), Tabu , Radio Afrika and Deti dekabrja ( December children ) between 1981 and 1985 . Later, he also founded a first own band, the Crazy Music Orchestra , which similar to the group Arkhangelsk by Vladimir Rezitsky , subversive and against the cultural establishment in the late Soviet Union was directed. Kurjochin's way of working at his concerts had the character of happenings ; S. Frederick Starr describes in his book on jazz in Russia the theatricality of the Soviet free jazz groups, which - in contrast to the aggressive, angry rock bands - offered shows with subtle humor and a "funny surrealism "; “He needed a circus with all the accessories, living animals. For a performance he asked for 18 motorcycles, a military band and a lot of singers from the Middle East (...) ”. He also used jackhammers; his performances were mixed media events , for the first time in the USSR . The tape recordings were smuggled into the West as audio cassettes; Leo Feigin published it in London in the 1980s on his Leo Records label . His first solo album was released in 1981 under the title The Ways of Freedom (as the only one of his recordings) on Melodija in the Soviet Union. From 1984 he chose the name Pop Mechanics (Russian Поп-механика / Pop-mechanika) for his band projects , which enjoyed cult status in the late Soviet underground. The main actors were Valentina Ponomarjowa , Sergei Belitschenko and Sergei Panassenko . Individual musicians from the rock groups Aquarium, Kino , AuktYon and others performed regularly . a. with Pop Mechanics .

In 1986 his album Introduction to Pop Mechanics , then Pop Mechanics No. 17 ; In 1989 he had a Dadaistic appearance with his band in Liverpool , then toured the USA and played there with John Zorn and Boz Scaggs . Kurjochin then became an international star who stood out from the - relatively isolated - Russian jazz scene; he later worked with Alfred Schnittke and the Kronos Quartet .

In addition to his Pop Mechanics project, Kurjochin worked with Vladimir Tschekassin and Boris Grebenschtschikow ( Exercises , 1982) and the Anatoli Wapirow Quartet ( Invocations , 1983). The solo album Popular Zoological Elements was released in 1982 , followed by Some Combination of Fingers and Passion in 1991, a concert recording from London. In his piano playing Kurjochin showed himself to be strongly influenced by his classical training and played without a strong jazz influence. In his solo album Some Combinations ... he paid tribute to Dave Brubeck , who was highly regarded in the USSR, with Blue Rondo a la Turk .

Kurjochin himself admitted that glasnost and perestroika and the end of cultural oppression impaired his enormous vitality, which was fed by the spirit of opposition.

In 1991 Kurjochin claimed Lenin was a mushroom on the TV show "5th Wheel" . Using what appeared to be scientific facts, he pretended to be serious. The completely fictitious facts were intended to demonstrate that anything can seemingly proven by appeal to scientific authorities, especially on television.

Sergei Kurjochin also wrote the music for a number of films and appeared in some as an actor or as himself.

Discographic notes

His records, which appeared on Leo Records in the 1980s, were re-edited by Leo Feigin in the late 1990s. The new edition of Kurjochin's first album The Ways of Freedom appeared in the series The Golden Years of Jazz (GY 14) on the label. The main work of the band leader and pianist is now being released in a 4-CD box entitled Divine Madness , which also contains previously unknown material from his solo work and the Pop Mechanics project. The edition contains two longer piano improvisations, a track from 1980 with the Creative Ensemble and the piece Opera with the Wladimir Tschekassin Bigband ; also material from the solo LP from 1986, Popular Zoological Elements and the complete album Pop Mechanics No. 17 , which Cook and Morton describe as the “key work” of Kurjochin's multimedia theater; a performance by the singer Valentina Ponomarjowa with Sergei Belischenko and Sergei Panassenko. The last CD contains the album Introduction to Pop Mechanics , which was recorded live in Leningrad in 1986.

literature

Web links

Notes / individual evidence

  1. ↑ His style of playing is more reminiscent of Rachmaninoff than Art Tatum, said Cook and Morton in the Penguin Guide to Jazz about his influence on jazz; see. Cook and Morton, 6th edition.
  2. ↑ cf. Ian Carr.
  3. ↑ The recording of the live show can be seen here (part 1) and here (part 2).
personal data
SURNAME Kurjochin, Sergei Anatolyevich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kurjochin, Sergei; Курёхин, Сергей Анатольевич (Cyrillic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian pianist and band leader
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Murmansk
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 1996
Place of death St. Petersburg