SPIRITUAL JAZZ 18/BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN PART 1

Description

In this two-part album, as far as jazz is concerned, we present, describe and celebrate precisely what was happening “behind.” We see that music is the supreme power, capable of transcending all barriers, whether physical, political or metaphorical. Our liner notes illustrate the complex and contradictory history of Soviet Jazz, and the tracks we have chosen cover the key period from the early 1960s to the 1980s. It was during these dark years of the Cold War that the Soviet Union and its satellite states produced a number of exceptional artists, playing in a variety of styles. The impact of modernism, hard bop, from latin to modal and cool jazz, had made its way through the cracks of the curtain. The deep ancestral influences of traditional European folk music mingled with the exciting new and progressive sounds of the West, thus creating a radical and intoxicating blend that no amount of rifles, tanks or polonium tea could defeat. We trace the triumph of jazz to a time of extreme geopolitical conflict. What was happening behind the Iron Curtain in these countries was once mysterious and unknown to the West, but the perseverance of their artists brought sound and light in the midst of the dark and secret days of the communist-capitalist confrontation. Behind the Iron Curtain, spiritual and life-giving jazz was inexhaustible.