Many winters ago I was listening to the BBC Russian Service. Seva’s programmes were the most important but tuning in early, I listened to the literary programmes (Yury Daniel’s short story Hands opened a very important door for me) and also, the jazz programme by Alexei Leonidov. I can’t describe the feeling of hearing the alien sounds of modern jazz through the roughness of suppressed radio waves. In combination it created its own art form.
I saw Alexei Leonidov when he transformed back into Leo Feigin in the Dom Cultural Centre in Moscow, at the Leo Records festival.
A few years back, right about this time, I received a package from Leo to be delivered to Moscow to the Wyrgorod publishing. Leo sent me 2 CDs as a token of thanks for being the delivery boy – he didn’t have to do that.
Now I am awaiting for a bigger package from Leo Feigin, having got 40 CDs of music in what I hope to not be the final sale of Leo Records. And I am playing the one I got some 6 years back: Last Train from Narvskaya. It is beautiful.
Garry Goldman Random Angle 