Performers at this week's Tauride Garden Jazz Festival will include pianist Andrei Kondakov.By Sergey Chernov
The Tauride Garden Jazz Festival, which starts on Thursday, will feature a dozen bands and solo performers from St Petersburg, but also bands from Germany, France and the United States.
The festival has been organized by the New Jazz Club in cooperation with the Mayor's Youth Committee. Musically speaking, it will present diverse styles including traditional jazz, be bop, rhythm and blues, jazz rock, rap and avant-garde.
One of the stars of the festival will be famed saxophone player Igor Butman. Butman who comes from St Petersburg now lives in New York. He has achieved a considerable success in the United States, having played and recorded with many American jazz stars.
The festival has been already compared with St Petersburg's now defunct legendary Osennye Ritmy (Autumn Rhythms) Jazz Festival.
However, Vladimir Feuertag, the organizer and presenter of Autumn Rhythms, said the festival would be a far cry from what the Rhythms used to be.
"In the Autumn Rhythms we tried mostly to feature visiting musicians, both from Russia and abroad, while this festival will concentrate on locals," he said.
Feuertag claimed the Autumn Rhythms had to fold because of financial problems and a lack of sponsors. These problems still affect the local jazz scene.
Count Basie's Big Band was supposed to take part in the Tauride Garden Festival, but this won't happen now because of a shortage of funds.
Festival drummer Gary Bagdasaryan.
"We've contacted 75 bands and not one was interested in sponsoring the event. So the band will tour the other Russian cities, but not St Petersburg," complained Feuertag who organized last year's one-off performance by John McLaughlin in St Petersburg.
Feuertag said bank directors didn't have much taste when it came to music. "Most of them are only interested only in pop music. They also support classical music a bit for prestige. But nobody wants to support jazz," he said.
But he has agreed to act as a presenter for this year's Tauride Garden Festival in order to support local jazz activities.