20 Soviet Jazz Albums You Need To Hear

Simon Nabatov, Sainkho Namchylak, Keshavan Maslak and more...

Sainkho Namchylak

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OK, then. Today is Bandcamp Friday, the day on which the site forgoes its usual cut of sales revenue and passes all monies directly to artists and labels. And as always, we’ve got a bunch of music ready for you to check out as part of our ongoing Leo Records reissue program.

We’re continuing our journey through Leo’s massive archive of avant-garde jazz and other creative music from the Soviet Union, much of which was released with great difficulty. This stuff is wild, superficially related to “free jazz” as it was known in North America and Western Europe at the time but coming from a totally different creative POV.

Pianist Simon Nabatov was born in Moscow, but he and his parents fled to the US, where he went to Juilliard. He has released somewhere around 30 albums on Leo, of which seven are reissued today. They are The Master And Margarita, a quintet tone poem inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel; Nature Morte, a quartet album based on a poem by Joseph Brodsky; the octet album A Few Incidences, featuring interpretations of texts by poet Daniil Kharms; the solo disc Perpetuum Immobile; Chat Room, a duo with drummer Han Bennink; the trio disc Autumn Music; and Steady Now, a set of duos with drummer Tom Rainey.

Saxophonist Keshavan Maslak is a wild improviser with a romantic streak. His album Romance In The Big City is a collection of duets with legendary pianist Paul Bley, while Mother Russia features live performances — some solo, and others with various partners.

Vocalist Sainkho Namchylak is an amazing and unique performer who combines the throat singing of her native Tuva with an astonishing array of other techniques from across the classical and avant-garde spectrum. We’re releasing two of her collaborations with the Moscow Composers Orchestra, An Italian Love Affair and Let Peremsky Dream; Letters, which features guests including bassist Joëlle Léandre and saxophonist Mats Gustafsson; Forgotten Streets Of St. Petersburg, a reunion with the group TriO; and the career-spanning compilation Nomad, assembled by Namchylak herself in partnership with Leo Feigin.

We’ve also got two more albums by the Ganelin Trio: Ttaango…In Nickelsdorf, an archival live recording from 1985, and 15-Year Reunion, a concert recorded at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2002. And Trio keyboardist Vyacheslav “Slava” Ganelin is featured on Birds Of Passage, a collaboration with vocalist/percussionist Esti Kenan Ofri, and on Us, a trio disc featuring saxophonist Alexey Kruglov and drummer Oleg Yudanov.

Ganelin also appears on saxophonist Petras Vysniauskas’ Viennese Concert, a live album from 1989. And our final release this month is Portrait, a 1991 live recording by the wild, almost indescribable collective known as Jazz Group Arkhangelsk.

All of this music is available now on the Leo Records Bandcamp page, along with more than 200 other titles from a vast array of artists. Go explore — there is so much to hear.

If you’re a free subscriber, today’s newsletter ends here. If you’re a paying subscriber, stick around for articles on the history of chapters; a new book about Erik Satie; the movie Agnes Of God; and global shipping; plus the very first recording of what would become the Globe Unity Orchestra!