Bravo

The period of Aguzarova (1983-1988)

Zhanna Aguzarova

The group was founded in the fall of 1983 by guitarist Yevgeny Khavtan and drummer Pavel Kuzin , who left the PostScript group due to stylistic differences. The vocalist of the new team was Zhanna Aguzarova , known under the pseudonym Yvonne Anders. The band was joined by saxophonist Alexander Stepanenko and bassist Andrei Konusov. In this composition in the winter of 1983, the first magnetoalbum was recorded, distributed through friends.

The debut concert "Bravo" was held on December 23, 1983 in a disco in Krylatskoye. “Bravo” performed the most relevant music for that time: “ new wave ”, neo- rockabilly and reggae . The second concert of the group took place on January 28, 1984 at school No. 30 in Moscow. Together with Bravo, the concert included: Sounds of Mu (group debut), Viktor Tsoi , Sergei Ryzhenko , and the experimental duet Raczkiewicz & Shumov . The concert on March 18, 1984 at the Mosenergotechprom culture center ended in a scandal. The organizers and participants of the illegal concert were detained by the police and forced to write explanatory ones, since holding informal concerts for money was illegal business . Zhanna Aguzarova spent several months under investigation for forging documents (her passport was issued in the name of “Yvonne Anders”, under which she spoke) and was forced to leave Moscow due to the lack of registration . In her absence in the group, the composition has changed significantly, and Sergey Ryzhenko performed the duties of the vocalist.

In 1985, with the return of Zhanna, the group managed to achieve legal status and join the Moscow Rock Laboratory . Thanks to her acquaintance with Alla Pugacheva , Bravo was invited to the Leningrad TV show “The Musical Ring ”. At the beginning of May 1986, the group took part in the Rock Panorama-86 festival, where they received the audience award, and after 2 weeks in the Lituanica-86 festival . On May 30, the musicians performed on the same stage with Alla Pugacheva, Alexander Gradsky , the “ Autograph ” and “ Cruise ” groups in the concert “Score # 904”, the collection from which went to the Chernobyl relief fund. At about the same time, the group is billed in the Moscow Regional Philharmonic Society, where it later begins work.

In 1987, the company " Melody " released the first official release of the USSR "Bravo" - the album "Bravo" recorded in 1986, the group of the same name, which sold about 5 million copies. At the same time, the first overseas tours begin, in which the public enthusiastically hosts the group.

The first country where Bravo played the tour for foreign audiences was Finland . During the tour, the record company Polarvox re-releases the band's debut disc for the Finnish market. The Finnish album differed not only by other mixing songs, but also by the name - “ Bravo ”.

Transition period (1988–1990)

By this time, the musicians deteriorated with Aguzarova, who preferred to remain in the underground . Scandals ended with the departure of the vocalist. It was replaced by Anna Salmina, who sang the hit King Orange Summer, which was filmed for a video clip ^[1] shown on Central TV in the program “Saturday Night”. The song on the poll "Sound Track" "MK" became the most popular song in 1986 . After Salmina, Tatyana Ruzayeva worked for a short time in the group, and then again, Aguzarova. However, in 1988, Jeanne finally left the team to begin a solo career. Bravo arranged auditions for new vocalists, including Robert Lenz and Evgeny Osin , who came to every rehearsal, begging to be taken by anyone - a drummer, guitarist, technician ^[2] . In 1989, he was taken to the group, the team recorded an album with him. We say to each other “Bravo!” , Which was distributed only on Magnitizdat reels and cassettes. Despite this, the songs “I Am Sad and Easy” and “Good Evening, Moscow!” Became popularly known. At the festival in Denmark, "Bravo" performs with Duran Duran ^[2] .

However, a new round of popularity was also the beginning of complications between Aspen’s relationship with the band’s musicians. The final point of his tenure was the incident when Dmitry Shavyrin, the heading for the Sound Track of the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, said that Bravo would not perform at the next festival held by the editorial board because the then director of the group Andrei Agapov deprived fans of meeting with their pets in pursuit of the "long ruble." In fact, the group was unable to participate in the festival due to the Baltic tour. At the end of the tour, Osin with the scandal left the team. Along with him came from the drummer Pavel Kuzin .

In early 1990, Irina Yepifanova joined the group, recording two songs with her: “Jamaica” (in Italian) and “Red Light” ^[3] . This period was captured in one of the issues of the Brain-Ring television show, namely during the filming of the first season semifinals, where the band performed these two songs. Soon, however, Irina left the line-up for her solo career, and already in August she took part in the Yalta-90 music festival, where she took third place ^[4] .

Syutkin's period (1990–1995)

After a long search in 1990, "Bravo" finally found a permanent vocalist - Valery Syutkin , who previously played in the " Phone ", " Architects " and "Feng-o-men" groups, became one. Initially, the group had differences over his hair. Syutkin had an impressive head of hair that did not fit into the image of the dude. After a lengthy debate, Valery nevertheless agreed to adjust his hairstyle and adjusted it to rock and roll standards. The original hairstyle of V. Syutkin can be seen when watching the very first clip of the updated Bravo line-up for the song Vasya ^[5] , shot specifically for the Soviet TV show Morning Post , in which the presentation of the new and new material was to take place. August 25, 1990 debuted a new composition of the group: E. Havtan - guitar; V. Syutkin - vocals, guitar, percussion; I. Danilkin - drums; S. Lapin - bass; A. Ivanov - saxophone; S. Bushkevich - pipe. In such a composition, the group recorded their most famous albums: Hipsters from Moscow and Moscow Beats .

The song "Vasya" was the first joint work of Khavtan and Syutkin and launched the next round of Bravo popularity. It began with the fact that Khavtan played Syutkin musical preparation and asked him to write some text about the dude. The singer immediately came up with a plot about a certain macho who is known throughout Moscow for his toughness and irresistibility. The snag arose only when the character had to choose a name. At first, Havtan insisted that the name should be fanciful (the dudes loved this very much) - for example, Edik. But Syutkin, on the contrary, considered that it was much more fun to play in contrast - let super-duper-man be called extremely simple. Here bassist Sergey Lapin blurted out: “What if Vasya?”. “It's not that!” Havtan pleaded, but he was convinced ^[6] .

The material of the first album was combined: part of the songs (“Vasya”, “Hang on, dude!”, “Girl of 16 years old”) was written in the new creative collaboration of V. Syutkin and E. Khavtana. Together with him, V. Syutkin also brought to the collective a composition of his own composition "I am what I need." The track was included in the album along with the instrumental composition "On the dance floor" (E. Havtan). The rest of the material of the album was recorded earlier and performed by previous vocalists. On the album, the songs “King Orange Summer”, “I Am Sad and Easy,” recorded in co-authorship with E. Khavtan and the leader of the Bakhyt-Kompot group, V. Stepantsov, sounded in a new way. Also on the album there are songs on poems by Yevgeny Osin “Good evening, Moscow!” And “Star Shake”, as well as A. Oleinik “Fast train”, the music for which was written by Havtan. In addition, a cover version of the famous 1960s Soviet hit song “The Black Cat”, sung by Valery Syutkin, was included in the collection. The new soundtrack to the old tracks was not rewritten, Syutkin's vocal parts were superimposed on the already finished material. The collection was released in 1990.

In October 1992, the group released its first full-length album, which was the result of two years of work. All compositions on it were written in tandem by composer Evgeny Khavtan and lyricist Valery Syutkin. 10 music tracks sound about 30 minutes. The concept of sounding new albums was somewhat different from previous works. If previously melodious guitar losses and experiments with a synthesizer were used together with beautiful and melodic female vocals, then the new sound changed towards classic rock and roll, the samples for which were mainly classical American rock and roll sound 1950-1960- s. A particularly striking example is the Moscow Bit album, consisting on the one hand of light and elegant compositions (“Lunatic”, “What a pity”, “That's all”), and on the other - of incendiary dance melodies (“Polar twist”, “ Cosmic rock'n'roll ”), which, in turn, fully responded to both the spirit and the sound of classical neck , boogie and foxtrot .

After Valery Syutkin took the place at the microphone, the group begins the second round of popularity. If the first wave of success was mainly associated with romantic underground symbols and aesthetics, then the new image was focused entirely on the attributes of the style . The key fetish of the Syutkin period is becoming a tie . Fans at concerts overwhelm their band members. Hundreds of ties of that time are still kept in the collections of Syutkin and Khavtana (in an interview, Khavtan said that he had long distributed all his ties ^[6] ). A separate song appears - “Stylish Orange Tie”. In addition to the tie, the sty was supposed to wear a spacious jacket and trousers, in which it would be convenient to dance, as well as wear dark glasses and colorful badges. In general, this image was borrowed from the style stereotype, which had already become a classic, by the looks, which provided for all of the above details.

The updated Bravo is touring most of the CIS . The peak of the popularity of "Bravo" came in 1990-1994. On television there are clips of the group, which occupies the first places in the charts. The culmination of the group’s second round of popularity is the anniversary concerts dedicated to the group’s tenth anniversary, held in Moscow in 1994. After a long break, Zhanna Aguzarova took part in them. In this way, the 1983 and 1993 Bravo groups performed on the same stage. The concerts ended with the joint performance by Aguzarova and Syutkin of the song “Leningradsky rock-and-roll”.

In 1994, the former musicians of “Bravo” Denis Mazhukov (keyboards), Igor Danilkin and Dmitry Gaidukov created the beat group “Off Beat” ^[7] . On August 12, 1994, the group debuted at the Moscow club Alyabyev. At the same time, its co-founders - Pavel Kuzin (drums, percussion) and Alexander Stepanenko (keyboards, saxophone, flute, harmonica) returned to the group, bass guitarist from St. Petersburg, Dmitry Ashman . With such a composition, the group records the album “ Road to the Clouds ”.

Lentz Period (since 1995)

In 1995, Syutkin left Bravo and began a successful solo career at the head of the ensemble Syutkin and Co. With him the same group leaves the trumpeter Sergei Bushkevich.

The name of the new vocalist was hidden until the end of the recording of the album At the intersections of spring and was announced only in 1996. It turned out to be Robert Lenz (he remains in this position until now), who had already taken part in casting for this place in 1989. Prior to joining Bravo, Lenz was a member of the Quiet Hour and MessAge groups , performing songs in English. In recent years, Yevgeny Khavtan himself also began to sing songs as a vocalist.

Robert had to relearn himself in Russian to work with Bravo.

In 1998, the group celebrated the 15th anniversary of the “Bravomania” concert tour, in which Syutkin and Aguzarova also took part. The tour was a great success, but the final concerts were canceled due to the non-participation of Jeanne. In 2004, the group, celebrating its 20th anniversary, again invited its former singers, as well as friends: Garik Sukachev , Maxim Leonidov , Zemfira , Svetlana Surganova .

In 2008, as part of celebrating its 25th anniversary, the group gave a series of concerts: on October 31 in St. Petersburg ( Zhanna Aguzarova was a special guest), and on November 12 in Moscow, besides Zhanna Aguzarova, Yury Bashmet was invited with the Moscow Soloists chamber ensemble with which Bravo prepared a special program ^[8] .

In the same year, the composition was expanded with a brass section composed of: Oleg Kudryavtsev (saxophone), Alexey Alekseev (trumpet), Dmitry Lazarev (trombone). A few years later, second saxophonist Alexander Yazykov appeared in her lineup. The brass section takes part both in recording albums and in the touring activities of the group.

In parallel with the work at Bravo, Khavtan released several side-project albums (the working name of the project is Mickey Mouse and Stiletti). His song "36,6", written in collaboration with Dmitry "Sid" Spirin from the group " Cockroaches! ", Headed the charts" Chart's Dozen ".

September 19, 2011 the release of the new album Fashion (named after the eponymous hit), which critics called one of the best works of the group.

In November 2013, an anniversary concert dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the group was held in the Moscow club Stadium Live, which was also welcomed.

October 16, 2015, the birthday of Eugene Khavtan, the release of the album Forever , previously planned for the anniversary of the group. A feature of the album was that this time Evgeny Khavtan acted as the main vocalist, having shifted Robert Lentz to the background. Yana Blinder and Masha Makarova from the group “ Masha and the Bears ” also took part in the recording of the album.

In 2018, the band released the album Unrealized (according to Khavtana - the most “ conceptual ” of all Bravo albums), which included songs by Mike Naumenko , “ The Time Machine ”, the Ariel band, and also plans anniversary concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg ^{[2 ]} .

Current Composition

• Евгений Хавтан — уникальные и стандартные гитары, вокал, фронтмен, добро , музыкальные темы и тексты песен (1983 — наст. время)
• Александр Степаненко — клавишные , саксофон, флейта, губная гармоника, гитара (lap steel), аккордеон , бубен (1983—1985, 1994 — наст. время)
• Павел Кузин — ударные, перкуссия (1983—1989, 1995 — наст. время)
• Роберт Ленц — акустическая гитара, электрогитара, губная гармоника, бубен, вокал (1995 — наст. время)
• Михаил Грачёв — бас-гитара, контрабас (2011 — наст. время)
• Рэйв Робита — перкуссия (2018 — наст. время)
• Яна Блиндер — голос (2015 — наст. время) (эпизодическое участие).

Духовая секция

• Олег Кудрявцев - саксофон (2008 — наст. время)
• Кирилл Стехов - саксофон (2018 — наст. время)
• Алексей Алексеев - труба, флюгельгорн (2008 — наст. время)
• Дмитрий Лазарев - тромбон (2008 — наст. время)

Former members

Timeline

• Alekseev A.S. Who is who in Russian rock music . — М. : АСТ : Астрель : Харвест, 2009. — С. 99—103. - ISBN 978-5-17-048654-0 (AST). - ISBN 978-5-271-24160-4 (Astrel). - ISBN 978-985-16-7343-4 (Harvest).
• Певчев А.Ю. Браво (иллюстрированная история группы). — СПб : Амфора, 2015. — С. 95 с. — ISBN 978-5-367-03418-9 . — Серия Легенды нашего рока.
• Певчев А.Ю. Bravo. Авторизованная биография группы. — М: Эксмо, 2017. — С. 320 с. — ISBN 9785699977321 .

• Официальный сайт группы «Браво»
• Официальный форум группы «Браво»
• «Браво» на YouTube
• Официальный сайт Евгения Хавтана
• Браво в библиотеке Максима Мошкова
• Браво на Last.FM
• «Браво» — «Мода» Рецензия Дмитрий Прочухан
• Урбанистическая Нефертити Жанна Агузарова