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In mid-May, we reported that Guru Groove Foundation were about to release a debut album, "Call Me Up." After a small delay, that event has now come to pass. In showcasing the event, we should begin with a reminder that the band has only been in existence for a couple of years. Despite their brief lifespan, though, they already lay claim to a broad geographic and artistic canvas. The ensemble, typically ten musicians in number, includes gifted instrumentalists from across what GGF term the "post-Soviet realm." Bridging lands and legacies all the way from America to Armenia and even Central Asia, they are keen to rattle off a long list of manageable (or marketable) styles: broken beats, disco funk, electro, house, lounge, minimal techno, and nu-jazz.
Overseeing this collective effort is frontwoman Tat'iana Shamanina (above), whose CV includes victory at a number of major jazz competitions. In more mundane, yet necessary quarters, she also has extensive experience as a Moscow session vocalist.
Over and above appearances at key domestic events, such as Moscow's Afisha-Picnic, MIGZ, "Lady in Jazz," and the city's national film festival, GGF have already played at internationally colored functions starring Ronnie Wood, Johnny Marr, and other Western luminaries. Any time spent by Shamanina in the background has now slowly morphed into a more prominent role.
In anticipation of the album's release, an interview appeared in Moscow's Afisha magazine. Here the band's aesthetic was defined as "salon electrofunk with synths, horns, and some powerful female vocals in English... Each and every sound has been thought through and put firmly in its place... This is pure style - free of any rough edges and polished to a sheen." The author, Mr. Aleksandr Gorbachev, had some doubts whether that emphasis on presentation was, perhaps, sidelining any emotional content. In other words, he wondered whether spectacle had started to displace sentiment.
Salon electrofunk with synths, horns, and some powerful female vocals
That same editorial text was then diplomatically balanced with some observations from GGF founding member Gennadii Lagutin. It transpired that his background includes experience in the realm of national television, which offered both the (initial) money and technical experience to then leave the media world. His goal - at some remove from primetime crudity - was to fashion music "that's neither underground nor pop-music… at least not completely so. We wanted a mix of electronic and live sounds. Something to get people both dancing and thinking!" Lyrics in English, it was hoped, would widen the possible audience, but - by their own admission - the musicians also knew that jazz-funk was going to cause some simultaneous problems in terms of accessibility.
The attitude of GGF was profoundly social, whereas as its jazz roots might be a hindrance – and thus limit that same social outreach. Oh, the painful irony.
The means by which these opposites might be bridged was, quite explicitly, deemed to be "quality." Although jazz is rarely heard on national radio, the expertise of its exponents might be able to counter the flood of mediocre offerings on most stations. Such was the theory. Shamanina and her husband, saxophonist Egor, expanded these ideas in a different interview, also designed to frame the new album's release.
Not surprisingly, the issue of singing in English arose simultaneously as a conversation topic, being the most obvious conduit between potential, yet (physically/geographically) separate audiences. Still the Moscow press had doubts. Mr. Shamanin said: "When people ask about the language issue, they often tell us English texts will never be popular within Russia - and then they remind us we won't make any money, either! But many of our listeners are young, bilingual folks. The kind of people who aren't bothered by songs in English. After all, we still fill up concert halls - and we're in demand, too."
He then placed aside any defensive arguments and turned instead to a positive notion: "The main thing is that English helps us to move westwards. And that's where the internet helps a lot." A second language was a stepping stone en route to additional audiences, as was the web. His optimism continued to counter outside skepticism...
...and that sunny outlook, come what may, appears to be paying dividends. Reaching out through online networks has already led to the band's music appearing in various new venues, such as film or TV soundtracks, at Moscow fashion shows, and so forth. "Thanks" to piracy, the web has also meant that GGF's music flies from shop-shelves to the ether with frightening speed. And thus to listeners... even to the parsimonious ones.
Here again, the musicians value a potential for social outreach over (immediate) profit. In a word, they're adapting: "We're actually happy that people disregard copyright laws and [as a result] drag our music all over the web. It works to our benefit: folks get to know us. They hear our songs, which means they grow fond of our material, and so they come to our shows."
We're actually happy that people disregard copyright laws and drag our music all over the web
Here the supposed "difficulty" of jazz is diminished in favor of the genre's simultaneous benefits! The jazz traditions that hoped to guarantee a healthy distance from pop's mediocrity also arm the members of GGF with the (academic!) skills to forge a better live show. Although jazz may be less suited to a marketplace driven by CD sales, it may actually be a plus in today's "post-piracy" environment, where concerts are the very lifeblood of almost all collectives. Better musicians do better live.
When asked which compatriots might be capable of a similar stance - using skill to bypass moneyed mediocrity - Guru Groove Foundation mention five Russian outfits, all of whom have been discussed (and championed) on this site before: Tesla Boy, On-the-Go, InWhite, Zventa Sventana, and Cheese People. They also mention a couple of Ukrainian projects - likewise available on FFM: Maneken and Gorchitza (below). "They're all young - and are well-established online, too. They've all got a series of well-determined goals, and that's super."
One of those namechecked groups is especially glad of the endorsement.
That Moscow praise logically takes us to a further discussion of Gorchitza, or - to give them their full name - Gorchitza Live Project. These musicians, working from Kiev, also have a brand new album, "It's You." From the outset, Gorchitza have always announced themselves as "a unique musical project of a new generation. The ensemble includes bright, modern-sounding vocals in a European vein." (That apparent platitude will yet prove to be important.) The band's full lineup is Allois (vocals), Alexey Gorchitza (keyboards), Alexey Kirichenko (guitar), Yaro Polishchuk (bass), and Oleg Kuzmenko (drums).
When together in the same room and surrounded by instruments, chances are that the quintet will produce "a mixture of popular mainstream music, electronica, and intelligent lounge tunes." The resulting noises have already enjoyed impressive airplay in Ukraine and been used as support material for several big-name touring artists from the West, most recently Skye, the ex-vocalist of Morcheeba.
Recently, to the surprise of many, Gorchitza were named a candidate for "Best New Artist" on the national MuzTV network. Things are looking up.
Asked by the Moscow press to define the album's contents, Gorchitza offered a couple of options, the first of which was fairly straightforward: "Attractive electronic music." The second was a little less conservative (and rather tongue-in-cheek): "Sexy Megapop." In essence, though, the band feels able to talk of its style and stagecraft with relative confidence thanks to one quality - that of ongoing difference. "We combine so many different things... I don't think the experiments will ever end."
A happy departure from generic purity is embraced; for all the market-driven need to brand oneself clearly, singularity is placed politely to one side. Jazz, funk, and dancefloor electronica all work to mutual effect - as more tools of adaptation to a new cultural context. In a world driven increasingly by live work, an ability to respond differently to different audiences in different registers is key. We've seen that Guru Groove Foundation avoid the standard, dismissive reaction(s) to jazz through stylistic variety and constant, quick responses to audience whim, both live and online. Gorchitza aim for a similar degree of stylistic infidelity.
It's a stance that finds romantic expression. A need to match audience desire(s) can be passed off as authorial whimsy: perhaps the band wants to be generically inconsistent… The artists' advice to young musicians is couched, therefore, in terms of ongoing attempts at self-expression: "Don't be afraid of dreaming. You have to do all you can if dreams are ever going to become reality. Don't rest on your laurels, either. You have to keep looking for something new and original." Chin up.
Only in the final phrase of that quote do we sense that "individual" expression is shaped by audience desire – and since the death of hard media, that same audience has no "center" or single face. Both the web and touring schedules make one's public widespread and multiple. The group's borderline banalities are designed to downplay any resulting burden.
Any hope of handling these new challenges of the web and endless touring is contingent, of course, upon an ability to improvise and adapt to fickle audience whimsy. One recent review of Gorchitza at an open-air show captured that ability nicely:
...a melange of disco, jazz, and trip-hop
"The crowd was treated to a melange of disco, jazz, and trip-hop. It was all mixed into a single, heady cocktail that immediately both warmed and excited the rain-soaked crowd. Overcome with surprise and pleasure, many people started to dance and clap along to the music. It wasn't long before Gorchitza's set was more like a party than a public concert. It was all as if close and longtime friends had come together."
A job well done, in several senses.
Jazz and the web begin to adopt kindred roles, at least symbolically. Both become realms of collaborative or networked performance, which benefit from the loss of centralized, "canonical" guidance. Piracy, having undermined the central role of studio recordings (sold on fixed media), also works to the benefit of related social enterprise. Music's nowhere (in particular) and yet ubiquitous.
Jazz: I'll play it first... and tell you what it is later
As Miles Davis once famously said, with regard what jazz might "be": "I'll play it first... and tell you what it is later." Its meaning comes not from a single and unchanging source; neither is its import defined beforehand, in a studio. Jazz is a social, shifting occurence that's improvised among members of one group - for the members of another (in the hall). Jazz more than most styles constitutes an ongoing, unsettled event that needs to be attended - since it is unpredictably networked in both form and function.
And so, having suffered at the hands of the traditional music industry, jazz may actually gain from today's new fiscal and technical landscape - as virgin or virutal territory that's designed for the industrious. And the adept.
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