Searches and discoveries: the 1980s
By Rūta Skudienė
The search for an original artistic language and a national identity in the Lithuanian art world of the 1980s clashed with the everyday life of the officially declared “mature socialism”, which was partly a reflection of stagnation and conformism. Until the years of the National Revival Movement, Lithuanian radio, television and periodicals avoided the topic of jazz music. Youth music columns and specialist publications carried news about performers or events in the genre.1 Unlike Lithuanian Radio and Television, which hardly broadcast and did not record Lithuanian jazz performers for its stocks, the Vilnius Recording Studio, a division of Melodiya in Moscow, had recorded and released up to 30 jazz albums in various formats by 1990.2 The newspaper Sovetskaya Molodezh (Soviet Youth), published in Latvia from 1981 to 1990, which annually carried the ratings of the top Soviet jazz performers in the questionnaire "Все звёзды" (All Stars), deserves a special mention. Its initiator Yuri Kopman, a Latvian journalist and jazz reviewer, developed the ranking model on the example of the authoritative American magazine DownBeat.3 According to the questionnaire, Lithuanian jazz performers consistently took the lead.4 The results of the survey were published by TASS, Moscow Central Television and the radio station Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which opposed the regime. Undoubtedly, this too was instrumental in disseminating information abroad. The first decade of the Birštonas Jazz Festival motivated Lithuanian jazz performers. Musicians with an academic background also began to appreciate the genre. Jazz evenings in the Neringa Cafe were revived in 1982. In a short time, a new generation of jazz performers was educated at the conservatoire in Vilnius, the Klaipėda Faculty, and children's music schools. The second half of the 1980s was marked by the breakthrough of the original style of Lithuanian jazz, with numerous concerts at festivals in other countries.
The pianist and composer-arranger Kęstutis Lušas (1957–2017) learned to play the piano at the Juozas Gruodis Higher School of Music in Kaunas. He was known on the Lithuanian music scene as a performer of original and controversial compositions, and was noted for his excellent technique and ability to convey the special sound of the keyboards. He also played the basset horn, bass guitar and percussion. In 1979, he founded a trio with Valery Nazarov (b) and Edmundas Malinauskas (dr). In 1981, the vocalist Marina Granovskaya and the saxophonist Vladimir Ignatov joined them. Lušas led a pop band called Elektra, and wrote jazz compositions and pop songs. He was voted best pianist at Birštonas (1980, 1982), and in 1988 he received a prize from the Lithuanian Composers’ Union. Together with his trio, and with Marina Granovskaya and Petras Vyšniauskas, he participated in the Gintarinė Triūba, Vitebsk Autumn, Vasaras Ritmi, Vilnius Jazz, Pori Jazz and other festivals. His programmes with Marina Granovskaya and the monumental compositions “Somersault” with the saxophonist Vyšniauskas have received much attention. He recorded several CDs with these performers: “Jazz Compositions” (1984), concert recordings at the Birštonas Jazz Festival (1988), “New Music from Russia”, and “Viennese Concert” (1989) for Leo Records in Great Britain.5
Marina Granovskaya (b. 1957) arrived in Kaunas from Kyiv in 1980. She studied the piano at the Kiev Higher School of Music. In Kaunas, she performed in the Orbita restaurant and took an interest in jazz. In 1981, she and Lušas’ ensemble won the Grand Prix at the Vitebsk Autumn Festival. In 1983, she was voted “discovery of the year” in a jazz questionnaire by the Latvian newspaper Sovetskaya Molodezh. In 1985, she joined the pop singing class at the Faculty of the Music Academy in Klaipėda. She has performed in many festivals with the bands of Lušas, Saulius Šiaučiulis and Gintautas Abarius, and made several recordings.
The singer’s performances were noted for her extraordinary stage presence; her rich low voice with a wide vocal range was fascinating for its artistic suggestiveness and its subtle improvisations. A review of her first solo record Midnight Song reads: “This music reveals the soloist’s versatile talent ... showing her great sense of style and precision with which she sings different trends of jazz. She is at ease with openly exalted blues, the subtle and restrained ballad "Roundabout Midnight", the seemingly light standard "Love you Madly", the dramatic "People on a Street" and "I've Got the World on a String", requiring great precision and virtuosity ... The fantastic mixture of moods and emotions magically enchants listeners and invites them to dive recklessly into the jazz element, which mirrors even the smallest particles of music, and which, in Granovskaya’s rendering, shines like a string of diamonds on a lover’s neck.”6 Granovskaya recorded the album with the Abarius Trio at the Vilnius Recording Studio in 1990.7 In 1990, she emigrated to Israel, and later lived in the United States and Canada.
The pianist and composer Gintautas Abarius (1959– 2010) graduated from the piano class of the Lithuanian State Conservatoire under Professor Jurgis Karnavičius; he also studied composition. Abarius composed some instrumental chamber pieces, music for theatre and television, cinema soundtracks, Church music, and children's songs. He also composed pop songs. He started playing jazz in 1978 with Alexander Fedotov (as) and Rubin Vain (b). The trio won the Grand Prix at the first Birštonas Festival in 1980. Later, the band grew, its musicians changed, and Abarius became its leader. In 1981, he won a competition of performers of contemporary music in Tallinn. Having begun to play jazz, he was acclaimed as the best pianist (1986, 1989) and musician of the year in Lithuania in 1989. In 1986, he received a prize from the Lithuanian Composers’ Union at the Baltijos Jaunystė Festival. In the same year, according to a questionnaire conducted by the Latvian newspaper Sovetskaya Molodezh, he was a jazz discovery in the Soviet Union.8 In 1987, with his quartet of Vytautas Labutis (as), Gintaras Šulinskas (b) and N. Beguncevas (dr), Abarius (p) won the Grand Prix at a competition of pop performers in Moscow. He took part in the Vasaras Ritmi (Riga), Vitebsk Autumn, Baltijos Jaunystė, Vilnius Forum Jazz, and Solo-Duo-Trio in Krakow festivals, and gave concerts in Western Europe. Until 1988, Abarius performed at all Birštonas festivals with his trio, quartet, the band Jazz Archive, and in a duo with Granovskaya. In 1988, the quartet won the Grand Prix. He released several records with his trio, quartet and Granovskaya.9 The performances by Abarius and his bands were always spectacular. In 1989, after giving concerts in Spain, the daily El Pais called the pianist a miracle from the Baltic, and compared his technique with the virtuosity of James P. Johnson and Bud Powell.10
An old-timer of Abarius’ bands, Alexander Fedotov (1949–2017) graduated from the Lithuanian State Conservatoire, where he studied in the clarinet class. He mastered the saxophone by himself. He also played in Viačeslav Ganelin’s big band.11 Between 1981 and 1983, he perfected his skills at the Moscow P. Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, in the saxophone class under Professor Yuri Mikhailov. He played with the Trimitas brass band and the symphony orchestra of the Lithuanian State Philharmonic Society. From 1979, he taught the saxophone at the Lithuanian Conservatoire (now the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre).
Arkady Gotesman (b. 1959) arrived in Lithuania from Ukraine in 1979. Before that, he studied the oboe, bassoon and percussion at the Higher School of Music in Tula. In Lithuania, he played with Trimitas and the pop band Oktava, and gave concerts in West European countries and Africa. In 1984, he began to play in bands formed by Abarius. He took part in jazz festivals and made recordings with these bands. In 1990, he formed the duo PetrArka with Petras Vyšniauskas. That year, they won the Grand Prix of the Birštonas Jazz Festival.
The multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Skirmantas Sasnauskas (b. 1961) formed a jazz trio while he was a student at the Juozas Tallat-Kelpša Higher School of Music. He also took a great interest in folklore. In 1981, he entered the Lithuanian State Conservatoire. He played in Vladimir Čekasin’s big band and Petras Vyšniauskas’ Dixieland. In 1986, he graduated from the trombone class at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and in the same year he formed a quintet with Sasnauskas (tb), Tomas Kutavičius (p), Vladas Slavinskas (g), Vladislavas Borkovskis (b), and Linas Būda (dr). His unique style may be derived from his extensive references to Lithuanian folklore. Sasnauskas plays various Lithuanian wind and string folk instruments. He has expanded the instrumentation of his compositions with the timbres and colours of folk instruments. In 1988, he made his debut at the Birštonas Jazz Festival, where his composition “Skudutis” was awarded a special prize for the ingenious use of folklore. In 1989, he recorded his first album A Song for Children at the Vilnius Recording Studio.12 In addition to Birštonas, he has participated in jazz festivals in Vilnius, Dnepropetrovsk, Novosibirsk, Plovdiv, Riga and Tallinn, and given concerts in Finland and Germany. He later distinguished himself as a universal musician playing jazz of different styles, from traditional to radically experimental. He was one of the first instrumentalists to begin to sing jazz standards.
The double bassist Arnoldas Gurinavičius (b. 1954) graduated from the M.K. Čiurlionis School of the Arts and the Lithuanian State Conservatoire. In 1973, he won his first award at a competition of young performers from Lithuania. From 1975 to 1986, he played in the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, and in 1980 he formed a jazz quartet with Šarūnas Gurskis (ts) Arūnas Šlaustas (p) and Arvydas Vainius (dr), and also played in chamber ensembles. Since 1987, he has played the double bass in the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra.
In 1988, he made his debut in Birštonas, and later at Vasaras Ritmi in Riga, the Aarhus Jazz Festival in Denmark, and New Territory in Kyiv. He composes music for documentary films and theatre performances, and since 1993 he has given solo concerts. The composition “Promenade” by Gurinavičius was recorded in 1988. In Birštonas he represented Lithuanian compositional jazz of the 1980s.
The guitarist Juozas Milašius (b. 1968) studied jazz guitar, the history of music, and improvisation and composition at the Juozas Tallat-Kelpša Higher School of Music. He has played in different bands and the school’s big band. In 1985, he recorded his first noise experiments.13 In 1986 he performed with Petras Vyšniauskas’ quartet, and in 1989 he founded the Gitarmanija band with Vladas Slavinskas (g), Vladas Borkovskis (b) and Dalius Naujokaitis (dr). He has taken part in Osennije Ritmy in Leningrad, Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw, Jazzkaar in Tallinn, and the festivals in Birštonas and Vilnius. He is an innovator-guitarist who uses unconventional alternative means of producing sound and composing, as well as electronics.
In the 1990s he composed music for cinema and theatre, and played with jazz musicians of different stylistic schools: Vladimir Čekasin, Vladimir Tarasov, Martin Schutz, Hans Koch, Jim Meneses, Saincho Namtchylak, and others.
Vladimir Tarasov (b. 1947), a member of the famous Ganelin Trio, is one of the few jazz performers in the world who stages solo programmes for percussion. His “Atto” compositions are conceptual musical actions-performances. By 1990, four programmes of this kind had been recorded at the Vilnius Recording Studio. Tarasov creates musical action by employing a wide range of percussion and electronic instruments.
His “Atto II” programme consists of eight pieces called “Monotypes”, a term used in graphic art. In visual art, a monotype is a unique impression of a design painted with an artist’s finger on an ideally smooth surface. In his album, Tarasov creates unique sound monotypes by enriching the repetitive rhythmic structure with sound combinations and their colours. “Atto II” was recorded at the Vilnius Recording Studio.14
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1 The articles by the musicologist Liudas Šaltenis in the weekly Literatūra ir menas and the magazine Kultūros barai are exceptions.
2 Lithuanian popular music, jazz and rock in the records released by Melodiya. 1962–1992. Catalogue. Mintis, 2013.
3 Donitch, Oksana, Kopman Valery. Тридцать лет пишу о джазе (I have been Writing about Jazz for 30 Years). Jazz kvadrat, 1 January 2000.
4 The questionnaire was filled in by over 30 leading Soviet jazz critics. The performers were rated in categories of ensembles and instrumentalists. The Ganelin Trio and its members, Petras Vyšniauskas, and others, were regularly voted among the best.
5 Listavičiūtė, Aušra. Lietuvos džiazo muzikantai. Katalogas 1961–1996 (Lithuanian Jazz Musicians. Catalogue 1961–1996). Vilnius: Saulės vėjas, 1996, p. 131.
6 Abarius, Gintautas. Midnight Song, LP booklet.
7 RiTonis/Lituanus/Sintez Records, 3-012-C-6, C6031757, 1991.
8 Listavičiūtė, idem.
9 Monografijos, C60 26655 007,1988. Reminiscence Blues, C60 27877 004. Melodiya, 1988, Midnight Song.
10 El Pais, 2 February 1989.
11 Listavičiūtė, idem.
12 Melodiya, C60 291 23 001, 1989.
13 Listavičiūtė, idem.
14 Melodiya, C60-25693-003, 1987.
