Mirages - or playing with one's memory

Last night after a few meetings a friend of mine and I decided to go to one of the places that everyone should know about in Kyiv, especially if they like different types of pirizkhy and bulochky, the place is Yaroslavna on Yaroslaviv Val just above from where Ivano Franka Street starts. As we were stepping inside this guy who looked extremely familiar to me and was sitting outside with a number of other familiar faces, stops me. "Hey Vassya, go get yourself something to drink and come out here and join us, and I have two more CD's to give you!" he said while handing me a CD.

For the longest time I tried to remember this guy's name, but to no avail. Rather than heading outside right away we sat down and order something to eat, and only later when a free table become available did we head outside. By this time, my acquaintance from a distant past was two sheets to the wind and didn't even notice that we had sit down at a table over from where a sizable crowd had started to gather.

By the time I was ready to join this person whose name I couldn't remember he had disappeared and rather than joining a table full of strangers and but two familiar faces I decided it was time to head home.

One of the familiar faces was that of Alexei Alexandrov lead man of Kyiv's Er.J.Orchestra the other I could not remember his name, though when I did a little digging around this morning as I write this the second face was that of Gregory Nemirovsky one of the Er.J.Orchestra's members whose CD I had been gifted by the man with the familiar face whose name I couldn't remember.


While I had never met these two talented musicians before there was a third from the group that I did meet back in 2001 while working on a project with Myroslav Levytsky called Music Without Borders, or as my friend Lionel Lodge would put it Music Without Boarders that took place in Linz, Austria. Lionel loves to play with words, and I don't blame him. That person was Volodymyr Sorochenko, not only a great musician but a really nice guy. Having obtained a one month Shengen visa, and while in Linz, Vlodko was discussing with me as to whether he should go to Dusseldorf to visit an old friend. I convinced him that the side trip after the gig in Linz would be worth it. At the end of the month when I met him at the Dynamo Jazz Club, he thanked me for convincing him to travel to visit his old friend.

I will have to look back into my past blogs to see if I ever completely chronicled how the Music Without Borders project came about, if I have well then you have read it here, if not it will be something to blog about in the future.

This morning as I sat down to blog I decided to take a listen to the CD given to me by the man who's name I couldn't remember, though some day I will, struck me as both simple yet complex at the same time. The album title is Mirages and its author is Gregory Nemirovsky. From what I gather from the liner notes the seven-track album was record in a home studio back in 2007 and finally came out this year.

The focus of this CD of course is on Nemirovsky's work on the Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Medieval cornet and in places keyboards. I found it extremely easy to listen to. I've been listening to it for the last three hours now, and there is always something a little new I'm picking out of it. The CD was released by Caravan Records and has a total running time of just under forty-one minutes. Look for it and if you can't find it I will point you in the right direction.