As soon as we came nearer to the city by bus, the more silent we became. The industrial regions made us silent, industrial litter, undefinable industrial complexes, a hostile environment. The more astonishing the accurate center of the town with alleys along the Karl-Marx-Boulevard, with basketball competition and cheer leaders, drugstores and shopping malls.
This town always was a center of power, many soviet politicians came from here as well as the actual politicians, but also the contemporary artist Ilja Kabakov, to name a few.
Not for the fist time the festival World Jazz at the Dnjepr was organised, in the center of the city in the Maxim-Gorki-Theatre, and every evening the hall was packed.
The program consisted of foreign ensembles like the Bill Evans Quintett, ukrainian-international ensembles like the quartett Haslam, Valentine, Solyanik, Shilin or just ukrainian ensembles as well as russian bands.
I was suprised that the audience was open for all styles of Jazz, Mainstream like the very famous ensemble Erstaunlich war für mich, daß das Publikum allen Darbietungen offen war; Mainstream-Jazz wie das im Igor Brill and the New Generation, was accepted and cherished as well as the folk-jazz-rrio Ornament from Moscow, ferocious applause for the Bill-Evans-Quintett, which had to give encores for more than 40 minutes.
A patient audience, which tolerated the bad sound and many technical problems to listen attentively to the concerts.
Bill Evans after the gig