Varlamov, Alexander Vladimirovich

Alexander Vladimirovich Varlamov was born on June 19, 1904 in Simbirsk , in the family of a college , then state adviser , member of the Simbirsk district court.

Until September 1918 he lived in Simbirsk , studied at the second male gymnasium. In 1912, his first musical works were published in Simbirsk - the play "Sadness" and the waltz "Evening".

In 1922 he entered GITIS (in the same workshop with Erast Pavlovich Garin and Nikolai Pavlovich Okhlopkov ). However, he soon leaves there and enters the Gnesins' School in the class of Reingold Moritsevich Glier and Dmitry Romanovich Rogal-Levitsky (fellow student in the composition class - Aram Khachaturian ).

How the jazz bandleader debuted in 1934. The attention of the music community was attracted by Varlamov’s collaboration with a Negro singer from the USA, Celestine Cool. Later he assembled the first group in the USSR from improvising musicians (The Seven). In the fall of 1938, he created the All-Union Radio Committee jazz orchestra, with which he worked until September 1939, having managed to take part in the first domestic television show.

In 1939-1940 led the jazz orchestra of MVTU im. N. Bauman. From the summer of 1940 to the summer of 1941, he was the chief conductor of the USSR State Jazz Orchestra. At the beginning of the war, the USSR State Jazz was transformed into the Model Jazz Orchestra of the People’s Commissariat of Defense and almost in full force went to the front, where most of the orchestra musicians died. Remaining in Moscow, Varlamov led symphonic jazz at the All-Union Pop Art Studio (Melody Orchestra, soloist Deborah Pantofel-Nechetskaya ) and prepared the program for performances in front of American sailors in the northern ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.

In January 1943 he was arrested on slander, by the decision of the Special Meeting, he was sentenced to eight years in prison, served his term in Ivdellag in the Northern Urals, where until 1948 he led the propaganda team and the jazz orchestra. After his release in 1951, he lived in Kazakhstan. He worked as a teacher in Karaganda . After rehabilitation in 1956 he returned to Moscow, wrote music for pop orchestras, films and television productions, made a number of recordings of his own compositions with sympho-jazz composition.

In the last years of his life he lived on the street. Leskova, 10 b., In the Moscow region of Bibirevo .

He died on August 20, 1990 in Moscow . He was buried at the Domodedovo cemetery ^[4] .

Alexei Batashev , an authoritative modern historian of jazz art, wrote in the 90s:

Ask any of our older jazzmen - and among them many famous ones - almost everyone will say: his passion for jazz began with Varlamov ^[5]

Alexander Varlamov noted that for him “the turn from primitive melodics to a real swing style” was very important. He was one of the first in the Soviet Union to devote increased attention to orchestration and performance culture. He discovered talents, attracted the most seeking musicians of his time to work: Alexander Vasiliev, Nikolai Shmelev, Alexander Rivchun ( saxophone ), Viktor Bykov, Mikhail Vetrov, Peter Boriskin ( trumpet ), Mikhail Petrenko ( piano ), Oleg Khvedkevich, Latsi Olakh (drums) ; Seeds Chanysheva ( double bass ), Theodor Khodorkovsky, A. Arsky ( arrangement and instrumentation ).

Such compositions performed by Alexander Varlamov’s orchestra such as “Happy hour”, “Early hour”, “Dream”, “Sing to me about love, dear”, “Yellow rose”, “Sweet Su” (in the original “Sweet Sue”) became very popular. , Just You ")," Dixie Lee "(" Dixie Lee ").

Alexander Varlamov is the author of such instrumental plays and vocal works as “Romantic Rhapsody”, “You Believe, You Understand”, “Edge of My Beloved”, “Sing to Me”, “Evening is Leaving”. Alexander Varlamov also translated foreign songs into Russian and performed them himself. His voice sounds in the popular song “At the Carnival” by Harry Warren (the original (Harry Warren ) (in the original “She Is a Latin from Manhattan”), in the ballad “The Moon” by Richard Rogers (in the original “ Blue Moon ”) and slow Fox “Happiness is Full of Life” by Jean Schwartz (in the original Trouble In Paradise).

Alexander Varlamov owns the arrangement of the Italian barcarole performed by Adeline Patti . In the 1920s, the Quartet of the Bat Theater in Nikita Baliev and the orchestra recorded a record with The Russian Barcarole at the Columbia Graphophone Company studio.

Being one of the few then Soviet composers, arrangers and conductors who mastered the swinging style of playing and writing, one of the first in the country to perform swing music, giving interesting examples of a new style. Among them stand out recordings of American plays “Playing on the Fingers” by Richard Rogers, “I am always with you” (in the original “Is It True What They Say About Dixie?”) By Gerald Marx (Henderson is mistakenly indicated on the Varlam track), “Happy Road” (in the original “I'm Living in a Great Big Way”) Jimmy McHugh, a jazz version of Yury Milyutin 's “Lyric Song” “Everything became blue and green around” from the movie “Hearts of Four” with vocals by Vera Krasovitskaya .

Since the 1930s, Alexander Varlamov wrote music for feature and animated films. His music sounds in the films Stepan Razin , Taiga Guy , Doctor Aibolit , One Line, the Quartet, The Canterville Ghost , The Fox and the Beaver, The First Violin , Wild swans "," Puss in Boots "," Cockroach "," Exactly at three fifteen "," Puck! Puck! "," The Adventures of Red Ties "," Naughty Princess ", etc.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Varlamov composed a number of compositions for the big band. In 1986 he wrote "Concert for trumpet and orchestra" and dedicated it to the city of Ulyanovsk .

Alexander Varlamov carefully worked on improving the performing technique and ensemble playing, which led to a noticeable increase in professionalism in domestic jazz and had a significant impact on the development of jazz music in the USSR.

• Batashev A.N. Soviet jazz. - M.: Music., 1972. - 175 p., Ill.
• Batashev A.N. Soviet jazz. Problems. Developments. Masters. Digest of articles. - M .: Owls. composer, 1987 .-- 592 p., ill.
• Batashev A. N. "Old Varlamov was good ...". // JazzArt Magazine, No. 2. -? year.
• Feuertag V. B. Jazz. XX century. Encyclopedic reference book. - St. Petersburg: publishing house "SKYFIA" , 2001. - 564 p., Ill.
• Dragilev D.G. Labyrinths of Russian tango. - St. Petersburg: publishing house "Aletheya", 2008. - 168 p., Ill.
• Dragilev D. G. Eddie Rosner: Jamming at jazz, cholera is clear! - Nizhny Novgorod: Publishing House "Dekom", 2011. - 360 p., Ill., CD