Times change and performers and jazz itself change with them, Igor Sklyar said at the start of the Jazz Classic Community news conference.
”Only fools don’t change. Our performance program is designed in such a way that we selected only the 1930s-1960s period and style, the time of swing and transition to bebop. There’s no room in our program for Soviet-era fads, except for one composition,” the actor and musician said about the upcoming performance.
The musicians will also play On The Sunny Side Of The Street (Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields) from the 1930s, and The Old Piano, Mark Minkov’s song with the lyrics by Dmitry Ivanov, and probably, Dear Muscovites (music by Isaac Dunayevsky, lyrics by Vladimir Mass and Mikhail Chervinsky). During the evening show, the Jazz Classic Community will also perform a Jimmy McHugh composition.
“In jazz bands nobody imposes collaboration at gunpoint. Sorry about such high-sounding words but jazz is all about love. It can’t be played if there is no reciprocity and synergy. I feel comfortable working with the band, especially in the sea and nature environment of Koktebel,” Igor Sklyar said.
Meanwhile, the format of the meeting with spectators may be unconventional as the performer is used to being on stage in the form of a non-repertoire band show or a meet-the-artist event.
“I’m more interested in looking for things that are accidental in jazz or curious events in authors’ biographies that the public is not aware of. You will hear that from the stage today. We will have such inserts but we will mostly share the joy of music,” the actor said.
The band members supported him by saying what united them was jazz and the love of this music genre.
Speaking about the start of her cooperation with the famous actor, band member Yekaterina Melnikova said that Igor Sklyar walked into a rehearsal of the long-formed trio, and stayed there after a few meetings.
“I asked them to show me some jazz. I was impressed, remembered it, and here we are, playing with Sergei Golovnya,” Igor Sklyar joked.
Igor Sklyar and the Jazz Classic Community will be on stage tonight at 9.30 pm.