About Artist
Dear friends,
I am honored to present you the first harmonica CD ever recorded in the history of Ukraine. I am proud to be the first to record and publish “Not Only Jazz” CD in Kyiv. I hope that it deserves to be the one representing in the harmonica world.
I would like to thank everybody who helped me come up with this CD: the oldest harmonica factory in the world C.A. SEYDEL SÖHNE (www.seydel1847.de), fellow musicians from my teenage hard-rock band, and Kyiv Harmonica Club (www.harmonica.org.ua), as well as those who, thanks to their professionalism, proactive attitude, energy and knowledge, helped me a lot. Also, I would like to express the utmost gratitude to my beloved wife who helped me in every way and bravely managed to stand up this entire project well.
I wish you to have a great time, lots of drive and, of course, love for every one! Great enjoyment of music, of this wonderful musical instrument called the Harmonica, and just love for life.
Sincerely yours,
Albert Maksimov (http://www.myspace.com/notonlyjazzyahoocom )
Review by Dmitriy Savitskiy on Albert Maksimov`s CD "Not Only Jazz"
What disease can the epidemiologist get infected with? In principle, he is not supposed to, at least with the diseases known to him. However, he can cheat and once and forever get sick with something incurable, for instance, with the passion for jazz. In this sense the former epidemiologist, Albert Maksimov, suffered total defeat! The diagnosis: jazz forever! The method of survival – playing the Harmonica.
His grandmother was the student of Gustav Neuhaus, mother – piano instructor in the school of arts. At the age of early mustaches Albert Maksimov, as he claims himself, was suddenly het up about playing the guitar. In 1979 he created one of the first rock bands appearing at that time on the territory of the former USSR under the name “Master”. Naturally, he composed the music and wrote the lyrics by himself. In their turn, the Kyiv authorities applied a healthy preventive approach toward him: to chill out his love to the “vicious” rhythms he was drafted to the army. It did not help though.
After demobilization Albert Maksimov graduated from the Kyiv Medical University, arming himself with the knowledge to fight diseases like cholera and plague. But eventually he put his white coat in the closet and set out for travel to explore Turkey, Bulgaria and Israel. He didn’t travel alone, but with his pal, which by the way was his eternal friend – the harmonica. And the passion for his pal did not prevent him from sharing with everybody else interested his intimate experience of close communication with his friend i.e. making sounds on the harmonica.
It should be noted here that the harmonica, the age mate of the saxophone, was the first pocket player of the humankind, with one only difference that it required from its owner rather an active approach than a passive one – just playing. If in its early stage of popularization it was more often seen in the hands of the pink-cheeked kids of the Burgers, it eventually became a traveling instrument, par excellence, of the immigrants. And if on the verge of the 19th century the German, Italian, Polish and Irish immigrants squeezed and twiddled harmonica in hands to produce the melodies of their abounded countries, the days to come in the 20th century saw an inevitable American synthesis. The sum of the memories could be converted into nothing else but the national American music – jazz.
The Americans called the harmonica a mouth organ, which sounds ambiguous and stands for either the organ played by mouth or just an organ… Both meanings are correct. There is one more name for the harmonica – “mouth harp”. The harmonica in jazz was first of all the blues instrument, which gives it its third name - the blues harp. Among the famous blues harmonica players these are the most remarkable: Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Walter Horton, Little Water, Sonny Terry and, of course, Sugar Blue. Among the contemporary jazz harmonica masters perhaps nobody else advanced as far as the guitar player Toots Thielemans. It is worth mentioning Larry Adler who played with the Django Reinhardt and Eddie Shu, a member of the Gene Krup’s orchestra in 50s. Eddie Shu used to change his sax by his out-of-the-pocket “baby blues”, the harmonica…
The CD “Not Only Jazz” recorded by Albert Maksimov with the friends, in the first instance fills our grateful ears with the vibrant enthusiasm of the man who once and for all got contaminated by the music and jazz in particular. This should be kept in mind: the CD itself hardly needs any comments, all is ok with it; it rather must be listened to! And if your body suddenly responds to it by the rhythmic excitement or unexpected pulsation, it means that the former epidemiologist has successfully contaminated you by this wonderful and incurable disease - jazz.
Dmitriy Savitskiy, "Radio Liberty" "49 minutes of Jazz" Paris
„ It`s a nice mixture of mainstream jazz and some more modern music “
HARMONICA WORLD Feb/March 2007
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