Jazz am Dnjepr: Kiev

The 6th International Festival World Jazz at the Dnjepr took place October 25 to 27. 2002 in Dniepopetrovsk statt.

There is a long tradition of JazzFestivals in Ukraina, very often they take place on board of ships which go down the big river Dnjepr from town to town. The concerts will happen on board or in the visited cities. One time before we had been invited to such a festival, but then the invitation was cancelled. The reason was high water. We understood that there could have been low water in the budget.

This year, the 6th international festival was programmed, not on a boat but in the Maxim-Gorki-Theatre in Dniepopetrovsk. The city of Dniepopetrovsk or Dnjeprpetrovsk, as the old soviet name says, is a center of heavy industry and political power. 7 hours south of Kiev, the city offers the sharpest contrast of an east european provincial town and the darkest industrial region I have ever seen.

Our tour started in Kiev, the capital of Ukraina. The Golden Kiev, the berth of Russia, the city of the Kievan Rus and a heroic town of World War II. The old city-center, the impressive Independence Square with galleries, fountains and monuments, prefabricated buildings and postmodern architecture coin the visual impressions. Vladimir Solyanik, Pianist and professor of Jazz, met us and showed us the city, and invited us to a boat trip on the Dnepr at the evening. Memories of a July evening in Novosibirsk arose, a boat trip on the Ob ... Later, in the evening, a concert of the Bill Evans Quintett at the Art Club 44, a club, somehow hidden in a yard of the main street Chrestchatik. The numberful audience made it obvious, that the concept of Erich Aigner, the owner, works: a concert every evening and from time to time small concert programs or festivals, exhibitions and restaurant. Quite expensive. An evidence of the growing wealth and the so-called emerging business. forward