GIYA KANCHELI
Famous Georgian composer
When did you realize that music was your calling?
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I can’t say exactly when I felt it, but I can tell you when I fell in love with music. It was after watching the film Sun Valley Serenade, where the protagonist was Glenn Miller with his orchestra. My entire generation fell in love with that music. And I must say, Joseph Stalin didn’t account for what might happen to a generation exposed to swing. Dissidents, defectors, anti-Soviet sentiments—they all came later. It all started with swing. I don’t know if you remember the time when stilyagi (Soviet hipsters) emerged, growing out their hair and all that. For me, that film and its music were significant in the sense that I learned to play all those tunes by ear on the piano.
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Later came another film, George from Dinky-Jazz. And then, whenever I was invited to a party, I never danced with anyone because I was always sitting at the piano. Others danced while I played for them. So, my relationship with music didn’t start with Mozart, Bach, or Beethoven, but with Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and the like.
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Stalin rarely made ideological miscalculations, but trophy films exposed people to a completely different life, didn’t they?​​
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He did make an ideological miscalculation. I think the foundations of the totalitarian regime began to wobble slightly after swing arrived in the USSR. Before that, we didn’t know anything about it.
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Tell us about Benny Goodman’s concerts in Tbilisi in the summer of 1962.
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The concert took place in a large sports hall that could accommodate a vast audience. I believe I had no trouble getting a ticket. As I’ve mentioned, jazz was an art form I loved deeply, and Benny Goodman’s visit to Tbilisi was eagerly anticipated. When it finally happened, it was a tremendous joy for all of us.
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When you idolize someone and then have the chance to see them in real life, I think that’s a great happiness.
I remember when Duke Ellington came to Moscow—he wasn’t planning to visit Tbilisi. I flew to Moscow and attended his unforgettable concert at the Estrada Theater. In my life, I’ve had a few such encounters with the highest levels of artistry: Leonard Bernstein’s visit to Moscow with the New York Philharmonic, Benny Goodman’s visit to Tbilisi, and Duke Ellington’s tour in the USSR.
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There was also a performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory by a brilliant mixed choir from the United States. When the wind orchestra of Michigan University, about 80 young people, came to Tbilisi and performed at the opera theater, I remember saying during the intermission to the person next to me: “It seems like the tuning of the orchestra depends on the state system.” That phrase spread among the audience, and two days later, Andrei Balanchivadze was summoned by the KGB. They told him, “You promised not to make any anti-Soviet statements, and yet, here we are again.” He replied, “I wasn’t at that concert and didn’t say anything, but the remark was brilliant!”
I also attended Igor Stravinsky’s concerts in Moscow. One concert was conducted by Kraft, and another by Stravinsky himself. Benny Goodman’s visit to Tbilisi was on par with those events for me.
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Was jazz banned in Georgia at the time?
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It was banned throughout the USSR, including Georgia. But jazz wasn’t immediately outlawed in the USSR. What does “banned” mean, anyway? Tsfasman played. He even performed a fantasy based on Sun Valley Serenade. In Utyosov’s orchestra, when something swing-related was needed, Vadim Lyudvikovsky, who was the musical director at the time, would adapt a standard, write new lyrics, and call it something like The Song of the American Unemployed. Utyosov would put on a cap, and despite everything, what happened in his orchestra and what he sang was connected to what we loved.
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So, there couldn’t have been a complete ban. But officially… well, you know. Just look at the Soviet encyclopedia. If you find the word “jazz,” the entry simply says, “Music for the fat” (a phrase attributed to Maxim Gorky).
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Was jazz the only thing banned in both Nazi Germany and the USSR?
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No, it wasn’t just jazz. There were many phenomena unique to both Nazi Germany and the USSR. I could list far more examples that happened exclusively in those regimes.
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​​Are jazz and freedom linked for you?
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​Well, if we consider music as freedom itself, then naturally jazz represents freedom too. Jam sessions, for instance, are an ultimate expression of individuality. Of course, it’s freedom. Tremendous freedom.
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Did you want to meet anyone from Benny Goodman’s orchestra?
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No, I didn’t have that desire. For one, if you went to Benny Goodman’s hotel, you’d be summoned by the KGB the next day. That’s just how it was back then.
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Once, an American embassy advisor brought a book about China written by a remarkable woman, the wife of a German journalist named Lunge. I went to the Iveria Hotel, met the advisor, and took the book. I asked if I could be of any help, and he politely declined. By then, I was already a well-known composer. The woman had sent the book to my wife, Lyuli.
Not long after, the KGB summoned me: “Did you visit the American embassy advisor at the Iveria Hotel?” “Why did you go?” “He gave me a book for my wife.”
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And then they asked, “When your symphony was performed in Leningrad, you stayed at the European Hotel. Professor Druskin, Andrei Petrov and his wife, and a German man with his mistress visited you. Why was he there?” That’s when I realized the KGB was trying to recruit me. They were blackmailing me because of that German guest.
At that point, I started being rude to them—it was already possible to do so by then. Many years later, I met a retired KGB general and asked him, “Tell me, what were you after back then? You knew your deputy had summoned me…” I told him the whole story. He just waved his hand and said nothing in response.
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And now you’re asking me whether I went to visit Benny Goodman?!​​​​​​​
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Photos from the Giya Kancheli Archive
