— How did you take up music?
— I had my first music lessons at the age of seven at my parents' insistence. My mother and grandmother were both professional pianists, so I naturally began with the piano. My grandfather was a singer and my uncle Andrei Davidyan followed in his footsteps. He recently appeared in Voice (prestigious Russian TV singing competition). I was a child then, and had no say in my musical family — and no one cared that I hated music from the cradle. I did my lessons only out of fear.
I lived in Petushki, a small town near Vladimir, up to the age of 11, and went to music school, and took piano classes. I didn't like music and did my homework only on rare occasions. Despite all that, I competed in two music contests, in Vladimir and Pokrov, and won both. Proud of my success, my mother took me to Moscow to enroll in Myaskovsky Music School (it bears Chopin's name now). When the teachers heard me during the entrance exam, they said I should repeat the fifth grade — which I did.
When I finished music school I said: "Enough is enough." First, I was thinking about applying to medical college, but my mother interfered again and sent me to Chopin State Music College, which had opened in Moscow the year before. I had a wonderful teacher there, Yevgeny Liberman, a man of genius and Heinrich Neuhaus' student. I was expelled in my first year, however.
I was infatuated with the guitar then. Metallica and Nirvana had a tremendous impact on me. That was the first musical passion in my life. I knew classical music and played it, but remained totally indifferent to it. I got to love it later when I was no longer forced to play it. At that time, however, the guitar took all my time. I gave up the piano altogether, and was naturally expelled.
My mother was on a month's guest performance in Japan. When she came back, she was stunned. She asked me what I was going to do next, and I said simply that I would play the bass.
I had never seen the instrument or even heard of it before I met a bass guitarist. That was in 1998. I began to play the bass two years later, that very year when I was dismissed from college.
I just strummed the guitar at first, but after leaving college, I felt free; I played for 10 or 12 hours a day and learned enough to enter the Pop and Jazz College on Ordynka Street, where I won its only state-funded place in a tight competition with people who had played the bass for years. That was my reward because the bass was my passion. I put heart and soul in my performance. That was how music became my life's work.
— How did you switch from rock to jazz?
— I came to it through coercion, just like to the piano before. I was a rock fan then, but rock wasn't taught at college, so I had to play jazz though I didn't like it. I began to see what jazz was about at the end of my first year of college, and grew to love it over the next two years.
— But you didn't play Nirvana in the entrance exam, right?
— Of course not. I crammed two jazz pieces without understanding them. It was awful.
I had no choice, I had to play jazz every day, and little by little I got used to it. I had an excellent teacher, Valery Melyokhin. He saw a gift in me and shared with me everything he knew and could — and that was a lot. He saw I didn't like it, but he did it anyway because he was sure that I'd make a good musician someday. He worked with me after classes a lot — taught me about the bass lines, the principles of improvisation, and all the technicalities. His lessons taught me how jazz worked, and I grew to like it.
Now I see why I didn't like jazz at the start: I didn't really understand it. I grew to like it when I saw what it was all about.
— Would you like to take up any specific style now?
— I never did, and I don't want to now. It's hard for people like me to learn just one style inside out. In fact, I don't consider myself either a jazzman or a rock musician. I enjoy being an omnivore. I like to take on whatever goal I set for myself.
I enjoy playing in sessions. That's what I wanted from the start. I never wanted to play with just one group or band and do nothing but that. I think I'll do as much as I can for many groups and I won't be pressed for time. One year I worked with about a hundred Moscow groups — not every day of course, but regularly. I do it now too. But I work with fewer groups than before because you can't work yourself to death for years. But I didn't do all this for nothing: I've gained a lot of experience. That's the way to work when you want to make fast progress. It's better than sticking to a particular style.
— What do you think of today's Russian jazz and music in general?
— Generally, it's certainly better than 20 years ago. I don't think there was anything worth talking about then. Star performers began to appear in 2000, when I took up jazz. Some of them were my classmates. There was Fyodor Dosumov, the superb Nikolai Sidorenko, who won the Montreux Jazz Piano Solo Competition two years ago, and fantastic Andrei Krasilnikov, who graduated from the Berklee College of Music and spent several years in New York. He's very popular and the best saxophonist I know.
There was no constellation of musicians 20 years ago as there is now, though there were great performers like Yakov Okun or Ivan Farmakovsky. They were the forerunners of contemporary music, which has become incomparably better with the development of Internet.
— What do you think about contemporary audiences?
— Nothing to write home about. Only vivid minds eager for self-improvement take an interest in real good music. Others are muddled by inferior songs on the radio and TV day and night. News about the real stuff only reaches professional musicians. Others have no direct access to this, and it takes an effort to find it. Their ears are clogged by awful pop and they are deaf to really good music. Things are quite different in the West. Good music is very popular there. The whole world knows, say, Stevie Wonder but only few know him in Russia.
Jazz concert-goers are different. They meet musicians with enthusiasm. Russian fans are the most receptive and grateful in the world. I know this from meetings with my foreign friends whose Russian tours I organized. Alex Hutchinson, Martin Miller, Damien Schmitt — all were impressed by Russian music-lovers' admiration. You sometimes go to a small town and think nothing will impress people in this place, but they give you such a warm welcome that the bliss of it stays with you for a long time. The best concert of a tour I had with Martin Miller was in Naberezhnye Chelny. The audience knew the kind of music they would hear and were grateful for it. That was great!
— Jazz is sophisticated music. That might be one of the reasons why it isn't popular enough. Even you say you grew to love it only after you understood it.
— That's right. But then, attitudes to music are very individual. I know music-lovers who know precious little about music but still fully appreciate geniuses like Allan Holdsworth. I wonder how they feel it.
I have many friends in Europe who love good music even though they have no music education at all.
— What's your impression of the Koktebel Jazz Party?
— It was wonderful though I have only small memories of it — we were tired. We flew from Alma Ata to Simferopol with a change in Moscow plus a two hour bus trip. We were like a squeezed orange and played worse than usual, with lesser drive. We were s big hit with the audience anyway.
It was a wonderful festival. So many people! It was very inspiring that there were so many people and they didn't hide their enthusiasm. Many even danced to one of our songs.
I met Dominique Di Piazza there. He's fascinating — one of the world's best bass guitarists! We got acquainted even before Koktebel, at the Simferopol airport, where he had come with a French band. He told me about Damien. The boy was only 11 when they met first but he played just like now. I am happy about this new friendship because Dominique has been one of my biggest idols since the first time I touched a guitar.
— How does it feel to be a world-renowned musician?
— It's awesome. But there are many people in Russia who hate me. I know it for sure. Jealous guys sling mud at me on the social networks. Many say I can't play at all but just strum at great speed. The people who say this can't play at all themselves. This vicious talk is a specific of our unkind people. They often crack: "A musician on a quest! He's rehearsing his only chord!"
I hate that stuff — but then, I don't care. I'm happy to be recognized by people I respect. It's always reciprocal. I enjoy compliments and they don't spoil me because I am too much of a perfectionist — I set myself high goals, and I never rest until I get them.
— What are your goals now?
— I never set myself any particular goals. My life is an endless quest. I think there is no limit to human achievement. I know people who have reached their ceiling and don't make any further progress. As to me, I don't think there's a limit to my quest, and I hope my development will be lifelong.
Music is as infinite as the Universe. A hundred lives are not enough to embrace it. I think I'll make progress as long as I live and am able to assess my work. Now, I assess it every day.
— They say you need to live in New York to be a good jazzman. Is that right?
— It is. New York is the world jazz mecca. Naturally, many musicians depend on their surroundings. There are exceptions, however — people of rare genius. I know some of them.
You might have heard about Nadishana — a World Fusion musician and my friend. We play together sometimes. He grew up in a village not far from Krasnoyarsk, walled off from the world, with no access to information. He had no musical instruments and drummed on saucepans and empty cans. His talent turned them into instruments. That's how he learned to play, a self-made man if there ever was one. He is a rare exception. A self-taught musician has never attained such heights before. He's a very serious musician.
By the way, Fyodor Dosumov also has no musical education at all though he is one of the world's best guitarists.
People like that are rare. A musician's career — not only in jazz —depends a lot on the surroundings. It's hard to learn to play in isolation, when you don't know what's going on in the world, what music is being played, and how.
Why do you think so many good performers have appeared in Russia recently? Just because it has been opened to information. The Internet led to a huge breakthrough. The Internet is a bad influence on some people, however — they are dizzy with too many choices and can't organize the information. I know people who watch clip after clip on YouTube all day long instead of rehearsing. You should be discriminative to use Internet to great effect.
Surroundings do matter. People flock to New York because no other city has so many top jazz musicians, and you become aware of the unique atmosphere as soon as you go there. But also, that city has crazy competition and it's hard to survive in it generally. I've never been there, but I know a lot about it because there are many New Yorkers among my friends.
— Would you like to go there?
— No, I want to go to Los Angeles.
— Why Los Angeles?
— New York is a jazz city while I play pure jazz only on rare occasions. Besides, I don't play double bass. As for Los Angeles, it's a city of the music I know and love — fusion, pop and rock. And then, the weather is always good there. I depend on the weather. I detest what I see in the window in Moscow now. I feel discomfited in such nasty weather. I didn't notice it before I spent three months in Thailand, and saw how wonderful it was to live in permanent heat and sunshine. Not that it matters most to me but it does matter.
Los Angeles offers an excellent cultural environment. Many top musicians I knew since I took up music are there. I'll certainly grow as a professional if I settle there.
Many of the best Russian musicians live in Moscow because it's Russia's cultural heart. It's a productive environment. You can hardly make good music in Yakutsk, with its 60 degree frosts, where nobody ever plays anything worthwhile.
— You hate winter.
— Yes, though I also hate heat. As for Yakutsk, it has a huge temperature range, the summer sometimes hitting 55.
— What will the music industry be like in 50 years, do you think?
— I can't see that far. Honestly, I have no idea what might happen in that many years. I think real music will survive, as all real art will, though with changes — just as classic music. I think it'll never die. This includes jazz. At that point, it might be an established branch of the classics, and an era in world music history. Even if nano or any other new music appears, jazz will always survive in its heritage niche. I expect a future like that for pop and rock too.
Everything will live on, I'm sure. I simply have no idea what will be in vogue in 50 years. Jazz will be outdated, I'm sure, and so will rock. When I first took up music 15 years ago, I didn't think anything new could be invented. Still, new projects appear every year, totally unlike what we had before because there are people of genius, who can invent unprecedented things. So everything will change in 50 years but all serious music will remain in the realm of history.