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ubop at strings nightclub
the military big band in action
myself and purevsukh in front of the workshop poster
students at the ubop jazz workshop
myself and andrew in full swing
Today is a bright and sunny, but cold, day here in Ulaanbaatar. Last night was bitterly cold, back to around minus 30 celsius, and so it wasn't much fun walking to Mealody restaurant for the Friday night Jazz sessions. But it was, as usual, well worth the effort. My student, Purevsukh, played two good renditions of Autumn Leaves and How Insensitive with Andrew and Ganbat, and, in the break, we went off to Strings nightclub to play a couple of tunes at the first anniversary party of UBS Music TV English. When we returned to Mealody it turned out that the UBS party was being broadcast live, and the audience at Mealody had just watched us on the TV set - including my somewhat unexpected on-stage interview! Fired up by the excitement of it all, we used up the last of our energies on the last set, which started with Keith Jarrett's Memories of Tomorrow, and included our new arrangement of House of the Rising Sun, which is great fun to play and very easily remolded and pulled around, harmonically.
At yesterday morning's Jazz Academy, the piano students from the Music & Dance College all showed a definite improvement, and are starting to play the blues with some conviction after a tentative start back at the beginning of February. There isn't any improvisation allowed in standard music lessons in Mongolia, as I have commented before, and it can be a little difficult at first getting students to open up and just play. Although I do remember it being pretty much the same with a lot of the students at Birmingham Conservatoire when I was studying there. There are now 9 pianists, 2 violinists, 1 alto saxophonist, 2 trombonists, 1 trumpeter, 1 khuurchir player, 1 morin khuur player, and 1 bayon player studying Jazz at the Academy, and I'm looking forward to seeing devlopment in all these students, and the many more who are apparently interested in studying Jazz, over the remainder of our time here.
From May, the plan is to give Jazz Theory and Practical classes to members of the Military Big Band and Orchestra over at the Military Academy in the east of the city. I've been out there before to hear the Big Band play prior to the Giant Steppes Jazz Festival last October. I'm very much looking forward to the challenge, and also to the advent of summer again in Mongolia, which will begin sometime during May, or a little earlier if we're lucky! Also, there is a slight possibility (and it is very slight at the moment) that the BBC may be interested in funding a documentary about the nascent improv scene over here, presented by UK bassist Arnie Somogyi, centered around Mealody and involving some time in the countryside working with Mongolian and Western musicians. Definitely more about that as I find out more, but if it comes off it will be during the summer, and would be such a great way to end our year-or-so over here.
Sun March 18th 2007
A traumatic few days in Mongolia. On Wednesday we were flooded out of our apartment after one of the water pipes burst in the kitchen, spraying super-heated water across onto the far wall (where all the electrical sockets were). In the space of 15-or-so minutes, the kitchen and part of the living room were under a couple of inches of water. The landord's 24-hour "emergency" phone was switched off (useless, just plain useless...), but luckily we managed to get hold of a couple of friends and, most importantly, someone with the tools to stop the water flow. But the water proceeded to leak down into the apartments below ours, cut off their electricity and drip through their ceilings and down their walls. Our friends were great and helped us deal with the angry neighbours and move out from the apartment. We stayed a couple of nights at their home before moving to another apartment. This is where I'm writing this diary entry from. It's spacious and well-located (next to the Cuban Embassy and above a restaurant called Romance) and has given us the opportunity to relax again after the upheaval. The weather has warmed up too, which raises the spirits somewhat.
Yesterday UBop gave a Jazz workshop at the Music & Dance College. It was well attended by staff and students and was great fun. Two of my music students played too, Purevsukh (who plays every week at Mealody now too) and Bulgan. Bulgan is a student at the Music & Dance College and has only been coming to Jazz Academy for a few weeks, but she has got a good Jazz feel and was the only student with the guts to get up and play with the trio, so well done to her! The whole proceeding were filmed by Ganbat's brother so I hope to get my hands on the footage asap. The Chuluun Foundation for talented young musicians helped us advertise the workshop and had produced a couple of advertisements and a large poster. One of the pictures on the poster was the one of me from my homepage, taken in May 2005 at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Looking at the picture whilst standing in the Music & Dance College, Ulaanbaatar, 6000 miles from home, was a very strange experience indeed!! We are giving another workshop next Saturday at the University of Culture and Arts, so I'm looking forward to that.
Mealody on Friday night was recorded in its entirety by a couple of Andrew Colwell's friends, so we are waiting excitedly for the results to manifest. There was a good mixed crowd, and an English teacher from Liverpool, Jimmy Fallows, played and sang some cracking Bluegrass in the interval (it's the fourth time he's played at Mealody and it's great to have him there - check out his blog Ulaanbanjo for mention of Mealody Jazz Club and a plethora of his cracking, witty observations about life in Ulaanbaatar). Jim was accompanied by Vadik, a Ukrainian guy who is also over in Ulaanbaatar teaching English, who played blues harp and percussion.
After the Blue Grass we were treated to a trio of khoomei singers, including Andrew's friend from Inner Mongolia, Chuluun. We didn't have our camera unfortunately, otherwise we'd have taken some snaps and recorded some audio for the site, since it was excellent. Each of the singers sang a lead line in turn, whilst the other two accompanied with low drones. Mesmerising. Vadik added some tasteful percussion for their second song, and the audience were respectfully hushed for the demonstration of the ancient Mongolian Shamanic art...then went back to talking loudly again for the UBop Band's second set of slightly less ancient American Jasm music. And applauding too though, luckily.