JOA per se followed the self-born / determined and silly? idea / task of reviving jazz here at the huge and hardly inhabited enough territories of Far East 1 of USSR - say from even behind Baykal lake (what is in essence Eastern Siberia yet) to Vladivostok and the Isle of Sakhalin on South and the Bering Strait to the North-East ... Khabarovsk ... 700, 000 populated, 60 kms long city on the right bank of Amur-river, with its important place (and the bridge ...) on Trans-Sib(erian) Railway.
It submits the sort of natural geographic / pioneering / transportation / military / industrial / cultural center, some - socially pretty lazy and inert! though ... - crossroad, a geo point of rather strict continental thinking ... (i.e. rather peasants - ironically ... - comparing to the nomads of the neighbouring Vladivostok).
Could the city happen as the - (il?)logically calculated ... - jazz point of attraction (due to historrically sufficient amount of musicians2 from military orchestras and restaurants etc) meanwhile to support (quite unconsciously and intuitively...) jazz idiom within a general community to glimmer for years 2 dangerously ? ... So was this (ir...)rational positivistic (jazz) idea something real - or the new sheer amusement for some idle mind(s) only?
"Jazz Into Masses", "Bigger Stage to Jazz Musicians", "Jazz Masters of Our Own" etc slogans and (a bit) improvised "Far Eastern Blues" as the own - ethnically based/coloured ... - music trend backed up JOAs' (natural ...) "ideological platform" since its inception in '86.
Within strong pro-trained tendency of not old and (culturally) urban enough distant pioneering provinces, "amateur" improvised musicians (from some other social stratas) of sufficient level were certainly impossible to emerge - so orientation was towards innumerous enough and almost non-existent as "social avant-garde" (wha!) though (and rather rigid...) pro-trained music circles.
When there was no black population in existence here before, 2 the temps of reviving should be the revolutionary ones to reach / outstrip the rest of the World in the near future, of course - as well as all the things done should be revolutionary during Perestroyka ... One should also remember Soviet people were always under the strong impression of the real possibility "to build socialism within one single country" (or system) ...
With its five concerts in 1000-seat (at least not fully filled, of course) hall, JOA'90 represented by itself nothing more than common silly provincial Soviet (yes...) jazz festival nevertheless. Even with foreign guests (kidnapped right from Kiev and with the troubles, see TON ART) and several pretty good and rather undervalued (on national level) musicians, 3 it was pretty modest event both organizationally and musically, spartanic, and conformed to both the organizers current potential and the situation.
Meanwhile it was the second festival only (already...) produced fully independently from any of the state (government) owned / controlled concert organizations or political institutions, 4 and the only one yet in exist at these huge territories - and for the fifth successive time / year already.
Sonically, I wonder if my evaluation of its - recorded - history would ever result in - more / less listenable ... - 1-2 (+) CDs with grungy sound ... or maybe just that chancy 7-8 minutes by some (lost from my horizons the pair of years later) female vocalist (she had no idea of Diamanda Galas - following the latter one instinctively) would cost all my troubles and be enough for some (personal ...) eternity ...
It all brought some live extasy, of course, not without it - as well as plenty of headaches with say passing foreign guests through USSR, domestic struggles etc. It all was equally enough to make the producer physically fully inactive right before the forthcoming "Friendly British Invasion" tour as well ...
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