"Russian Jazz" by Nikolai Levinovsky in the context of Russian Jazz Art of the 1970s-1980s.

Ovchinnikov Pavel ORCID: 0000-0003-3334-0856 Associate Professor at the Department of Pop and Jazz Music, Kosygin State University of Russia 117997, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Sadovnicheskaya str., 33 silversoniq@gmail.com Other publications by this author

The celebration of the centenary of Russian jazz in 2022 revealed the undying interest in it not only of performers and listeners, but also of researchers. The focus of attention of domestic and foreign scientists is increasingly on various periods of the development of Russian jazz (Ogorodova, Shebanova, Jagovdik ^{[12; 13]}, Yurchak ^[22], Roberts ^[19], Star ^[20]), which makes it possible to fill in the gaps in the study of the history of the formation of metropolitan and regional performing schools. Meanwhile, outstanding figures of Russian jazz have not yet received a proper assessment, among which we note Nikolai  Yakovlevich Levinovsky is one of the brightest representatives of the Moscow jazz school of the 1970s and 1980s.

The creativity of N. Y. Levinovsky is directly connected with the socio-cultural context and is largely conditioned by it. It was the late Soviet period, the Brezhnev era of "stagnation and reaction" ^{[21, p. 20]}, a time of transformation of ideological and cultural norms. In the 1970s, the attitude to the field of jazz performance changed significantly in Russian culture. This was facilitated by the weakening of ideological control, which shifted towards rock music and bard songs, strengthening their creative positions during this period. It was in the 1970s that the sphere of rock music expanded (the "weighting" and "metallization" of hard rock, the appearance of punk rock, disco), the Bardic song demonstrates its capabilities in expanding plots and artistic images, its classics become V. Vysotsky, A. Galich, S. Nikitin, etc.). It is indicative, that in the 1989 manual "Rock Music: Aesthetics and Ideology" of the series "To help the lecturer" it was noted that already in the 1970s. "the authority of rock music among young people allowed not only the music itself, but even its name, to be commercially exploited. This led to the emergence of many bands with the prefix "rock" (art rock, conceptual, avant-garde, "electronic" rock), which immediately "introduced them to the rank of modern, youth, popular" ^{[9, p. 15]}. It is to rock music and the bard song that the attention of a significant part of the youth audience has now been attracted, for which jazz has ceased to be an actual direction.

The weakening of interest in jazz on the part of young people was compensated by the attention of concert organizations. Jazz has become legalized and has become a full-fledged part of state cultural programs. Many Soviet philharmonic societies conduct cycles of jazz concerts. They were preceded by a preliminary examination procedure: after listening to the program, the concert status of the jazz collective was approved at the art councils: composition and repertoire, geography of tours.

As a result of cooperation with philharmonic cultural projects, jazz artists continued the process of institutionalization of jazz, and the material base of jazz soloists and collectives was strengthened: they were legally registered as employees of the philharmonic, the tariff rate of concert performances was applied in payment. For jazz musicians, it was a real revolution: if "in 1949 they could be imprisoned for jazz, in 1959 they could be expelled from the conservatory" ^{[7, p. 199]}, then since 1965 jazz could be performed at festivals, earn a laureate diploma, but not receive any financial rewards. This forced jazz musicians to get into pop orchestras, to play along with singers, but now jazz lovers officially became professional musicians. Initially, the official status of a soloist was mainly given to pianists, all other members of the jazz collective were defined in the philharmonic as accompanists, but in the mid-1970s it was decided to design jazz musicians as soloists of chamber ensembles. Of course, this contributed to the consolidation of the equal status of the members of the jazz collective. Nevertheless, the registration of a jazz collective in the Philharmonic was still considered a risky business: the Moscow jazz-rock ensemble "Arsenal" by A. Kozlov, which gathered a huge audience in the halls, in 1975 was forced to settle not in the capital, but in the Kaliningrad Regional Philharmonic.

In 1978, the status of philharmonic chamber jazz ensembles was given to the Ensemble "Allegro" by N. Ya. Levinovsky and "Cadence" by Herman Lukyanov.Let's look at the activities of N.Ya. Levinovsky in more detail to understand his contribution to the development of the Moscow jazz school.

Nikolay Yakovlevich Levinovsky, a graduate of the theoretical composition faculty of the Saratov State Conservatory named after L. V. Sobinov (1974), by the time of the formation of the Allegro jazz ensemble (1978) already had experience in ensemble performance, musical direction and preparation of jazz arrangements in Tula, Saratov and Moscow (after moving to the capital in 1969) jazz groups, in particular, in the jazz orchestra of A. Kroll, E. Rosner, the ensemble "Melody" by B. Frumkin. His jazz ensemble "Allegro", after receiving the status of a philharmonic jazz collective, conducted active touring activities both within the country and abroad, was repeatedly declared the best jazz ensemble of the USSR. The performance of the Allegro ensemble included and gained popularity treatments, fantasies on Russian folk themes and author's compositions by N. Y. Levinovsky ("Tumblers", 1969, "Ringing Bells", 1972, "In the folk spirit", "Volga melodies", 1978, "Legend", "In this World", 1980, "Jazz Symphonietta", 1985), V. Konovalova (Fantasy on the theme of the Russian folk song "They gave to the young"). Levinovsky noted in his autobiographical book "Keep a Square, dude!" that the Russian theme was an important theme of his works, starting from the earliest stage – the creation in 1964 of the composition "Russia is the Holy Land" (not publicly performed) – and continued during participation in the collectives of Kroll, Rosner, during the creation and the creative activity of the Allegro ensemble.

During the 1970s, V. Aksenov played an important role in the ideological justification of jazz as freedom, in the formulation of the problem of the "Russianness" of Soviet jazz. Russian Russian jazz, emphasizing that "jazz is an international art" ^{[1, p. 75]}, the writer reflected on the autoimage of Soviet jazz, finding its roots in classical Russian literature, in the works of F. Dostoevsky: "Folklore is not at all necessary in order to play in Russian. Russian Russian just needs to be in the soul, deeply feel the spirit of Russia, and then there will be Russian jazz. You ask why drama, anguish, melancholy? Because Russian jazz comes from Dostoevsky" ^{[1, p. 114]}. "The stylist" A. Kozlov echoed his friend Aksenov, noting that the fascination with American music did not mean low worship, in parallel, the artist was in the process of studying Russian folklore, Orthodox spiritual traditions ^{[6, p. 50]}.

The stylistics of N. Levinovsky's compositions is based on the interaction of the techniques of American jazz performance and the traditions of Russian folk singing. Analyzing the playing method of John Coltrane ^{[16, p. 35]}, who became the "guiding star" of the N. Levinovsky quartet (in addition to him, V. Konovaltsev, V. Epaneshnikov, N. Nikolenko were part of it), the musician realizes the proximity of the innovations of modal (fret) jazz that arose in the 1960s, in which improvisation was not built on chord sequences, and on extended melodic constructions sustained on one foundation, at a certain stage of the scale – Aeolian, Ionian, Lydian, Dorian, etc. All this seemed new, original, created a feeling of meditative immersion in a lasting ecstatic state ^{[5, p. 178]}. The stylistic relief of the composition was formed by a system of interpenetration of jazz music techniques and lado-intonation structures of national cultures ^{[8, p. 138]}.

The openness of modal (fret) jazz techniques for synthesis with national traditions of musical thinking attracted N. Levinovsky and became a characteristic feature of his compositional style, defined by the musician himself as "Russian jazz" ^{[7, p. 92]}. Even in the performing manner of saxophonist V. Konovaltsev, a member of the N. Levinovsky quartet, a special sound crystallized: in his solos he found a special dynamic and timbre brightness, up to sharpness, striving to convey the "wild pagan rites" of Russian folklore ^{[7, p. 137]}.

The "avant-gardist" N.Ya. Levinovsky was distinguished by a craving for experiments. In the 1980s. Levinovsky, realizing the listeners' craving for rock music, decides to introduce elements of "guitar rock" into the sound of the Allegro ensemble. It was a time of youth's fascination with the "Weather Report" groups, the creativity of Ch. Corea ^{[18, p. 37]}, H. Hancock ^{[20, p. 397]}. Levinovsky invites N. Gromin, but he soon leaves the USSR, and the head of the Allegro ensemble begins to introduce jazz-rock and disco techniques into his arrangements and author's compositions.

Concert performances and studio recordings of "Allegro" allow us to analyze the peculiarities of the ensemble sound, to determine the novelty of N. Y. Levinovsky's approach to the embodiment of the stylistics of swing or jazz-rock compositions. The concert performance of the Allegro jazz ensemble in the Ostankino Concert Studio (1988) and the recording of the jazz suite "Five Novellas", performed by the Melody ensemble of B. Frumkin (All-Union Recording Studio 1988, release - 1990) demonstrate the characteristic features of N. Ya. Levinovsky's compositional style: the combination of a chant thematism with jazz motor skills, the creation of complex modern arrangements by combining the timbres of acoustic and electronic instruments, alternating techniques of tonal and atonal music, contrasting symmetry and asymmetry in the structure of compositions. Thus, in the composition "Procession", the artistic image is based on a contrasting combination of the ostinate rhythm of drums and refined melodies of solo instruments (electric piano, trumpet and saxophone), structural clarity (variational form) here is adjacent to the freedom of improvisational sections of solo parts. The "Interlude" is free in form, has a wave structure of gradual dynamic increase and sharp decline in sonority, is saturated with atonal sections, sonorous colors of clusters in the piano part. The popular "Song of Fading Flowers" is based on a specific timbre ensemble sound (the synthesizer is tuned to the timbre of the flute, it is complemented by a double bass and small percussion instruments). The composition is based on the variational principle of the development of thematic material, which helps to consolidate the melody in the listeners' memory and helps to understand the ways of their transformation ^{[11, p. 50]}. This principle of shaping attracted the composer when he was fascinated by the work of Chick Corea, who created the ensemble "Return to Forever" ("Return Forever"), who left the avant-garde experiments obscure to the general public in the direction of jazz-rock, exciting the modern listener.

Levinovsky's turn in the direction of rock music seems to be no coincidence, it reflects the trends of the time. In the era of the active introduction of sound recording and sound-transmitting equipment into the sphere of cultural communications, new directions appear (rock music, jazz rock, art rock), against which jazz began to be perceived by the listener more passively, it became primarily auditory in the way of perception, its kinesthetic orientation decreased ^{[17, p. 63]}. Modern research in the field of acoustics and psychophysiological effects of music contains a conclusion about the influence of these factors on the aesthetic perception of music (Goldberg ^[3], Borisova ^[2]). Rock music based on the dominance of accentuated rhythmics differs from jazz installations on the techniques of shifting the listener's "inner metronome" using the off-beat principle – the introduction of numerous syncopations and accentuated weak lobes into the musical text. Due to the clear accent rhythm, rock music produces the effect of immersing the listener in a trance, and, on the other hand, the increased dynamics of the sound causes an activation of perception, turning the concert into a show, giving the listener "a feeling of outburst of emotions and, in part, a state of catharsis" ^{[10, p. 152]}. The desire to combine the techniques of jazz and rock music is manifested in the work of many musicians of the late 1960s. N. Levinovsky contributes to this expansion of this trend, which aims to involve the listener with the world of jazz and show its inexhaustible artistic resources.

Folklore, jazz and avant-garde techniques of academic music, methods of arrangement, drawn from the best samples of modern music, became elements of a kind of creative synthesis, which became the basis of N.Ya. Levinovsky's individual compositional style, artistic image. His talent as an arranger was extremely in demand in the performing environment (he made arrangements of many melodies by A. Babajanyan, his arrangements of popular melodies by American jazz composers were performed by the Melody ensemble, L. Merabov's orchestra, and became the basis for the success of the Allegro jazz ensemble). It is noteworthy that the musician in his biographical book notes the influence on the orchestral style of the author's compositions not only the experience of listening to recordings of outstanding American jazz ensembles (a combination of solo wind instruments and orchestral sound from B. Goodman, the refinement of orchestral sound from D. Ellington), but also the orchestral principles of D.D. Shostakovich, who even answered the letter of the young musician, who made the dramatic principles of the form and instrumentation of his 15th symphony the subject of his conservatory diploma. Levinovsky was surprised to note that the work on the topic unexpectedly fascinated him, and he discovered many useful techniques for composition techniques, the ability to work with thematic material, to build the form of an essay ^{[7, p. 151]}.

Recognition of N.Ya. Levinovsky's artistic success was the repeated announcement of his "musician of the year", and the Allegro ensemble – "The best jazz ensemble of the USSR". The musician's name is noted in the Soviet Musical Encyclopedia in a series of those composers who sought to combine jazz with Russian folklore and professional musical traditions.

After moving to the USA in 1990, he restored the Allegro group for Russian performances, organized a big band in New York (the Nick Levinowski Orchestra, which includes S. Gurbeloshvili, A. Sipyagin, B. Kozlov, B. Parson, E. Middleton, E. Gravish, N. Bless, etc.) and the company "NLO-Records" for the performance and studio recording of their own compositions (albums "WADE Barthes Sextet", 1993; "Listen Up. Nick Levinovsky Big Band", 1998; "Qiis. Nick Levinovsky & Friends", 2002, etc.). The orchestra of Nick Lewinsky took part in jazz festivals in Salt Lake City, its organizer often performs on the airwaves of American radio programs about jazz.

In the decade of the 1970s, a large-scale cultural event in the world of jazz took place: the tour of the big band of the University of Illinois (1968), the D. Ellington Orchestra (1971), the T. Jones – M. Lewis Orchestra (1972), through the cities of the USSR. This long-awaited event made a strong impression on Russian musicians, but there were also critical reviews. Thus, N. Levinovsky noted that attending the concert of D. Ellington was not only "the first step to America" for him, where he later emigrated, but also a test of a feeling close to disappointment: "the sound of the orchestra did not carry the novelty that we, young Russian jazzmen, craved. These elderly black musicians didn't seem to be affected at all by the changes in jazz over the last 10-15 years. They performed the usual repertoire in the old-fashioned way, which they were tired of" ^{[7, p. 130]}. On the contrary, attending Ted Jones and Mel Louis concerts became a real holiday for the musician, a school of artistry and professionalism ^{[7, p. 130]}.

The geography of jazz festivals is expanding, which are now held throughout the country with the support of the USSR Ministry of Culture (Moscow, Leningrad, Riga, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Kuibyshev, Voronezh and other cities). 1971 was the time of the first Moscow festival of the Studio of the Art of Musical Improvisation at the Moskvorechye Palace of Culture. Festival events provided the listener with a rare opportunity to hear instrumental jazz programs without the usual inclusion of song numbers ^{[15, p. 71]}. Unlike American jazz festivals, which are a series of concerts at different stages of large cities, Russian festivals had a broader creative program: festival participants participated in numerous jam sessions, hotly discussed current problems of the artistic profession, as a result of new acquaintances created new performing groups.

The appearance of TV shows with jazz music on the first program of Central Television in the late 1980s played a fatal role with Russian jazzmen: the aura of taboo, which ensured a high level of popularity during the years of official approval of jazz in the Soviet cultural program system, disappeared ^{[4, p. 71]}. Jazz, like academic music, does not appeal to the masses. While jazz was semi-secret, the public willingly bought tickets, but now, having come to television, as N. Levinovsky noted, "we did not gain a new audience, we began to lose our audience" ^{[7, p. 230]}. During this period, the Allegro, Cadence, and Arsenal collectives finished their creative activity, which can be compared with the decline of American swing in the late 1940s.

Summing up the above, we note that the work of N. Y. Levinovsky in the 1970s and 1980s is characterized by the search for ways to develop Soviet jazz art, experiments on the interpenetration of elements of jazz and folklore stylistics into the musical fabric of the author's compositions. The polemic on the autoimage of Soviet jazz ^{[14, p. 47]} received one of the promising answers in Levinovsky's activity: jazz in the process of its historical development may have its own national branches. Rapprochement with national musical traditions contributes to the further development of jazz art, the expansion of the geography of its popularization and productive assimilation. Levinovsky's "Russian jazz", enriched with the techniques of rock music, became an original phenomenon of Soviet musical culture of the 1970s and 1980s, a factor in the further development of domestic jazz art.