Text of 1985:
This disc, "Allegro" 's third, for the first time presents this jazz group in its new composition: with three wind instruments, a new drummer and the second keyboard player — Nikolai Levinovsky is assisted by the young pianist Alexei Kurochkin.
In Soviet jazz "Allegro" has represented in the recent years a poetic and romantic "fanciful" trend in music. Warm, humane and heartfelt, the Ensemble's music used to resort to musical tone painting, depicting scenes of nature, now fantastic and mysterious, now full of motion, light and life. This colouristic trend is reflected on this new third record. However, on the whole the group's sound has changed to a more rigid, dense, "big band" — like one. This resulted from the mixture of two winds (in some cases their number with the help of "double overlapping" reaches five) with "orchestral" timbres of synthesizers. There emerges a feeling of great scope and volume, with massive harmonic verticals. Rhythmically "Allegro" is still close to "fusion"—a blend of jazz and rock with a considerable touch of Latin American percussiveness.
"Fantasy in О major" has a soft, warm rhythm, tender, romantic trumpet melody, sort of "song without words", a chain of colourful chords gradually growing in complexity. It is followed by a series of solo improvisations, each consisting of two parts — a songful beginning and a rapid double tempo. The first solo is trombonist Vyacheslav Nazarov. His playing is songful, almost vocal; in the second part of the solo his drive and impulsiveness become obvious, coupled with virtuosic scope. The second solo — trumpeter, Alexander Fisher — is sparkling careless, smiling graceful passages. The third solo — Nikolai Levinovsky (Fender piano). The sounds of electronic piano now glimmer mysteriously, now scatter like a cascade of pearls... Three solo episodes finally merge into a songful hymn-like unison turning into a reprise of the lyrical first part. The sound gradually fades, dissolving in the repeating figurations.
Composition on Cole Porter's "Love for Sale". N. Levinovsky has read this lyric melody-image in his own way, making it extremely dynamic. Already in the theme's first occurrence the musicians depart rather far from the original, replacing Porter's harmonies with their own and introducing many additional chords. In the arrangement of this theme "Allegro" 's orchestral nature has been revealed to the greatest extent: the theme is stated in the dialogue of two "brass" groups, one being a sound beam made up of a trumpet, saxophone and trombone, the other — aptly selected timbre of the synthesizer. In many episodes polyphonic verticals are heard created with the help of "multiple overlapping" device (the skill of the sound engineer deserves special mention).
There are also three solos in this composition: trombonist V. Nazarov's calm, light improvisation, elegant, rhythmically witty — of trumpeter A. Fisher and the lyric one of bassist V. Dvoskin. The composition is concluded by N. Levinovsky on the electronic piano, echoing the Group's forceful statements.
"Concert Suite in Three Movements". This is N. Levinovsky's work which was also performed by the previous composition of the Ensemble, but in a new arrangement and partially restructured.
In the first, dynamic movement the unison of winds states a simple lyric and romantic theme. Solos are played by A. Zakaryan (tenor saxophone) and N. Levinovsky (electronic piano). The movement's conclusion is written in high tempo, with increasing dynamics, counterpoint of winds and keyboards, growing complexity of musical texture and finally with an energetic solo of percussion section (A. Gagarin) leading to the Suite's middle movement. There are no winds in it, only synthesizers. Somewhere deep inside a sound "point" emerges, growing, expanding, acquiring new overtones, with electronic "splashes". Its music of meditation, serenity, immobility. Unhurried is the mini Moug's richly ornamented song... The third movement takes us back into the world of movement, it is a merry masquerade samba, a procession of "instruments-masks" with every solo like a character and with an ironic game between the participants of this dancing procession (noteworthy is a merry dialogue between the trumpet and synthesizer at the end of the Suite's Finale).
Arkadi Petrov
