The first historically documented jazz concert was held in Russia on October 1, 1922.
What is the difference between jazz and “soviet jazz”? What came out of the discussion about jazz between the newspapers “Pravda” and “Izvestiya”? Who was the most popular jazzman in USSR and when was he released from the Gulag? Why did Leonid Utyosov himself remark “I hate your jazz”? How did young Soviet jazzmen receive their high jazz education, listening to broadcasts of “Voice of America” on short wave radio? Why did jazz history in Russia have to start, strictly speaking, three times and who was at its foundation each time…?
The answers to these questions are discussed at this lecture by the editor-in-chief of Russian jazz magazine “Jazz.Ru”, featuring unique photo-, video-, and audio-material.