Jazz in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan International Jazz Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2021. It was founded by Tagir Zaripov, who also opened Central Asia’s first jazz school for children in 2003, and the associated Almaty Youth Jazz Band. In 2018, Zaripov took the youth band to USA to represent Kazakhstan in a concert of young jazz groups at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. The school band also performed at the International Jazz Conference in Long Beach, California.

Percussionist Takhir Ibragimov (1947-2006) was one of the first to cultivate a jazz scene in Kazakhstan. His jazz rock group, Boomerang were active in the 1970s, but did not have the opportunity to record until they made their self-titled debut album in 1983, including both Kazakh and Russian musicians, including Takhir’s percussionist brother Farhad, saxophonist Victor Nikolaev and trumpeter Yuri Parfenov. The band played festivals around the Soviet Union and in Uzbekistan. Two further albums in 1984 and 1985 saw changes in lineup. All three albums show off some high quality playing and and an innovative take on jazz fusion with some folk and avant garde elements thrown in. Keyboard player on the first album, Vladimir Nazarov went on to form the Medeo Ensemble, which was supposedly a jazz fusion band when performing live, though their suriving album (from 1985) is dominated by cinematic electronica with little soloing. Inevitably, both the Boomerang and Medeo albums were released by Soviet state label, Melodiya.

A more dramatic fusion of jazz and traditional music came in 2008 when the Kazakhstani group, The Magic Of Nomads recorded their album ‘Bulbul Zaman’ at Abbey Road studios in London. The album takes in throat singing and traditional instruments like dombra (Kazakh lute), kobyz (horsehair string instrument) and jetigen (zither), with a jazz rhythm section.

DJ Rustam Ospanoff organised a number of music festivals in Almaty from 2009, which took in jazz. The Jazzystan events have brought in international artists like Jamiroquai, Incognito, Joss Stone and Gilles Peterson, as well as promoting local bands like the Vladimir Khomenkov Band and the Nuketai Brass Band. During Joss Stone’s visit to Almaty, she took the opporutnity to promote a young jazz/neo-soul singer called Nasia, who also won the Big Sky International Jazz Competition in Moscow in 2017.