Love for a Woman Makes a Man Freer: An Interview with Jazz Musician Andrei Slavinsky

“The relationship with a woman is like the relationship with music. Feelings, emotions, and the ‘wow’ effect in both cannot be forced. To create love, special conditions must be met,” says Andrei Slavinsky. Andrei’s relationship with jazz began in his childhood, and this love has stayed with him for life. Now, he not only plays jazz but also actively promotes it. He is the author, artistic director, and conductor of the Andrei Slavinsky VIP Jazz project. He also organizes concerts where people can listen to jazz and learn about it. The next such event will take place on December 7th at the Belgosfilarmonia. Meanwhile, we talked to Andrei about music, love, harmony, and life.

Why Jazz?

At the beginning of your career, jazz was not popular in our country. Musicians preferred either simple popular music or classical music if they wanted to do something more serious. But you chose jazz, remained faithful to it all this time, and not only perform it but also popularize it.

I started with rock. Rock was understandable, fashionable, and everyone played it. However, when I was 10 years old, I received an offer to audition for Ilya Reichlin’s children’s jazz orchestra. I didn’t know what jazz was, but I was interested in trying something new. By that time, I had already learned to play the drums on my own, so I passed the audition. Thus, becoming a soloist in the orchestra, I began my acquaintance with the world of jazz.

From the very first rehearsals and performances, I realized that jazz was my music. Since then, nothing has changed: jazz is the music I want to perform and popularize. Its means of expression are very close to me. Rock music, compared to jazz, seemed very simple and limited. Jazz is voluminous. It includes elements of rock, classical music, and, in a broad sense, elements of all world music created before its emergence.

Jazz has become a unifying, constituent, universal musical language that allows me to speak on any topic. Having learned what jazz was at the age of 10, I have remained faithful to it ever since (smiles).

What is Jazz to You?

Jazz is a way of expressing one’s attitude towards the world and what is happening. The language of jazz allows for a very accurate representation of a variety of shades and meanings. Rock, like any other style of music, can also do this, but only in jazz are there no restrictions on structure and means of self-expression. Essentially, jazz cannot be determined by anything.

In this sense, jazz is the freest music.

Jazz includes elements of all world music created before its emergence.

Can One Learn This Special Language of Jazz?

Of course, the language of jazz can be studied, and one can start from childhood! As in any style of music, jazz can be divided into three main components: melody, harmony, and rhythm. If you want to engage in jazz, you should start by studying these simple components, in the form they were created in classical music.

Having mastered the basics, you can move on to more complex and rich rhythms, harmonies, and melodies of jazz. Jazz is not considered the simplest music for a reason. Due to the fact that it accumulates elements of many musical styles, including very specific ones, it has rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic freedom. It can transform music very radically, allowing any chord to sound in a new way, thereby opening an infinite horizon of musical meanings.

At the same time, jazz cannot be called anarchic music. It has frameworks and forms that define its sound, which are important to observe in order to create music, not cacophony. Understanding the balance between the freedom of performance and the frameworks that define the sound is essentially the main rule for learning and performing jazz.

What Distinguishes a Jazz Musician from Musicians of Other Styles and Directions?

To become a jazz musician, it is essential to immerse oneself in the context! It is very important to listen to different types of jazz: from the earliest styles (gospel, blues, Dixieland, etc.) to modern trends (modal jazz, ethno-jazz, fusion, etc.).

This is necessary for many reasons. To understand the differences between the main stylistic directions of jazz, to expand one’s musical vocabulary, and thereby form a “listened” and conscious perception of the specifics and nuances of this musical style. These nuances cannot be reduced to a single scheme; they become clear only in such a comprehensive presentation.

Such immersion in the context allows one to form rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic foundations, to learn musical formulas, based on which in the future you will be able to perform jazz improvisations, or in other words, to create music at the moment of its performance.

Who Were Your Teachers?

My first teachers were rare audio recordings of Dave Grusin, Chick Corea, and Irakere, which I managed to get when I was a child. If I were to name names, in orchestral music, I consider Glenn Miller, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington as my teachers; in traditional jazz, Louis Armstrong; and in vocal jazz, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

A very important experience for me was the concerts of world jazz stars, which, being a student at the Rostov Conservatory named after S.V. Rachmaninoff, I could watch not from the audience but from behind the scenes. When you stand behind the scenes, you can see how the musicians play.

This can be compared to the work of a chef. It’s one thing when you are served a ready-made dish, and another when you can see how it is prepared. The secrets of culinary art are revealed through direct contact between the master and the student. Essentially, it’s the same in music.

It’s one thing to hear music from the audience, and another to see the nuances of the movements of the hands of brilliant musicians, the angles of body turns, how the swing is made for the strike—all that allows extracting very subtle vibrations of sound, fundamentally changing the picture of the work. These observations from behind the scenes of jazz stars taught me a lot and allowed me to significantly improve my technique.

And, of course, the experience of joint performances with European and American jazz musicians, whose performance specifics were very different from ours, was a serious lesson for me.

In general, this is a very old tradition—joint performances on one stage by famous and beginning jazz musicians in the format of jam session concerts, where musicians choose one theme and perform it each in their own manner, as they see it, as they relate to it. For beginner musicians, it provides professional growth, and for famous ones, it brings a fresh vision to the established style, allowing them to go beyond their limits.

That is why I often invite not only famous but also beginning musicians to perform together with VIP Jazz and my orchestra. I think this is important.

Which Performers Should One Listen to Understand and Love Jazz?

I think one should start with vocal jazz. It is more understandable. For example, one can listen to Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra, focusing on the brightest names in each genre.