Not Impressed. Kaliningrad’s Jazz Festival.
The first days in August mark Kaliningrad’s big summer event: The Don Chento Jazz Festival.
Hmmmm. Remind me. Don Chento? Didn’t he play bass with Count Basie? Or, just a minute, wasn’t he in Duke Ellington’s horn section?
Er, no. Don Chento is the adopted name of Kaliningrad pizzeria magnate, Vladimir Katzman. There’s usually a Don Chento pizza place next to one of Kaliningrad’s Viktoria supermarkets.
To digress a little, Don Chento pizzas are truly awful. Any babushka in Kaliningrad can knock you up a better Italian in half the time for half the money. But then you’d have to eat it in her post-Soviet kitchen with all the wrong wallpaper, and good decor matters more than good food to aspiring Russians these days. So Don ‘Vladimir’ Chento had his pizzeria interiors designered as a jazz club and set up the annual Jazz Festival in Kaliningrad as a promo.
How’s it working out? Kaliningrad blogger Kokoc isn’t impressed. He complains:
It is pleasant when a city lives a full cultural life, even though I am not a passionate jazz fan.
But what interests me is that there is also in the neighbouring city of Klaipeda (Lithuania) an annual international jazz festival. Big artists come from around the world, tourists flood in and the festival spreads itself all over the old city.
In fact, the highlight of this event is the territory of the festival - the city of Klaipeda itself. Nobody erects barriers or cashier’s offices. The power of sound is the jazz music that can be heard by all.
But, in our case, the festival is fenced off and access costs money. Even though Jazz knows no boundaries and territories.
For some reason, our people need to create an additional entourage around any event. Maybe they think consumers ‘demand’ that the elite should be separated from ordinary mortals, as if it’s a mere commercial event.
Clearly there’s a conflict here between a civic and a commercial event. Kaliningraders would like see their show rival Klaipeda’s - oh and Gdansk has a festival too. It’s Jazz Wars in the Baltic. But sponsor Don Chento is pitching his pizza parlours as a place for gilded youth, not daytrippers.
In any case, you can’t daytrip into Kaliningrad. Unless the authorities introduced a Moscow Football Match system, where a ticket was equal to a visa, you’d spend the whole festival at the border.
And to be fair, someone has to pay for big name artists. Europe’s biggest and longest running event, the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland, always charged admission and even a small premium for top billing.
Klaipeda, which features acts like Joe Sample and Randy Crawford, is putting up a huge local funding, maybe even some EU culture money, and there Kaliningrad can’t compete.
Unlike the locals, I think Kaliningrad is probably doing the best job it can. Which is more than you can say for the pizzas.
Hm sounds like the Batumi Jazz Festival which we caught one evening off. It appeared to be happening in a tent, or at least perhaps you could call it a marquee for the elite. But trying to keep the music in a tent is not very sensible. So we didn’t bother to pay and sat overlooking it and listening to something that was hardly jazz and not very entertaining either. No pizzas on offer either.
I see I have been exiled to a country called Oddball. Is there any escape?
Hi Varske. Interesting comments.
Thinking about it, these two events (the jazzfest and the environmental gig) have something in common. Without free borders around Kaliningrad, there’s a limit to the potential audience and revenues. The ‘Moving Baltic Sea’ guys were a little disappointed with their turnout. And they weren’t able to promote it with a free run of the town as they did in Gdansk.
Yes, it is a nonsense to make such festivals closed. But Kaliningrad has a long history as a closed town. The mentality probably can’t change overnight. As you know, Russians can party as hard as anyone, so perhaps there’s also an element of the authorities not letting them off the leash.
About the ‘oddball’ category, I’ve only just updated this site and I wasn’t entirely sure where you were. Well, you do move around a lot. I’ll change it to Georgia. Now you mention it, Moldov Ann isn’t in Moldova and there was that ‘Viola from Vilnius’ who was somewhere else entirely, like South America.
Years ago, tennis playing emigres at Wimbledon had a BBC category called ‘Stateless’. Maybe that’s good for you EU types.
Hi, Copydude.
Please don’t bother about our Kaliningrad mentality. Everything is OK with us here, were are very open and hearty people as much as you only can imagine. We forgot about KGB many years ago and cleared our streets from bears with balalaykas:)
Biggest our problem is EU which locked us inside our small land with severe visa regime. Not Moscow, not our “authorities”, but they, high-civilized EU members, did.
And you’re right, organisation of open jazz festival here in our european prison is imposible without stream of sponsorship, investments and visitors from outside. Today it’s just a dream. Thus only thing we have is small commercial privat promo festival for locals. Just based on the investment of one good jazz-adicted gentleman. And if he wants to get some his money back and sold tickets … there is no one’ s business I guess. And anyway many thanks for him:) Everything was pretty nice this year.
Hello Oleg.
‘European Prison’ - well, yes there I sympathise. There really should be some effort to resolve this issue from both sides. It isn’t civilised, no. It’s unfortunate that it’s now much more difficult to visit Kaliningrad than it was a couple of years ago. You can say the same about Narva/Ivangorod, where barbed wire has gone back through the middle of the town just like the Berlin Wall. It’s turning the clock back.
Thank you, dear Copydude, for really nice and right words.
Dear Copydude, please let me use Your publication on our official festival homepage!
Do not hesitate to contact me if You need any pictures or additional information.
Thank You for being with us!
Hello Svetlana.
Of course, you are welcome. Let’s hope the border situtation improves and you have more foreign visitors next year.
Well well well , i,m french living in Kalinigrad and before in south of france , I can tell you that everything is ok in Kaliningrad and good to live. This festival was very correct if we considere the young age of it , in 1 year in a half this city moved a lot and only reach 10% of her capacity , respect thoses peoples who tries to do the best they can , better be positif and you will help them more .
Hi Pascal. Maybe the post wasn’t clear. The person who wasn’t impressed was the Kaliningrad blogger, Kokoc.
I wrote: ‘Unlike the locals, I think Kaliningrad is probably doing the best job it can.’
Yes, Kaliningrad is a nice town.
Stratus media group owns, operates, and hosta 4 jazz festivals a year. The Napa, Maui, and Santa Barbara Jazz Festivals, and the Maui Music Festival. These are all great events! Stratus media a publicly traded company that is very diversified by owning over 140 live entertainment events. Very compelling investment opportunity! http://www.stratusmediagroup.com/