Batyr was born on May 18 in Kyzyl-Orda into the family of economists Dilara Ibragimovna and Kamal Shukenovich Shukenovs. The middle child of four children, Batyr grew up with two brothers, Baurzhan and Bakhytzhan, and sister Raushan. The three brothers fell in love with music since childhood and in the future connected their lives with music and creativity.

At the age of 12 in the Artek pioneer camp Batyr became the winner of a vocal contest. That same year Batyr was invited to the amateur ensemble at the music school. That’s how he came to music.

There was a good selection of vinyl records in the Kyzylorda store. Batyr and his older brother Baurzhan warmly recalled the music that was played in their parents’ house. It was mostly jazz. Soviet one: Ludvikovsky, Mainstein, Utesov. The music of the orchestra led by Ludvikovsky, by the way, was used in the dubbing of the movie “Gentlemeni udachi” and the first series of the cartoon “Nu, pogodi!” Music imports from the socialist bloc country, Polish jazz, also made their way to the Soviet Union and to that very vinyl store in Kyzyl-Orda. Polish jazz, which had been developing since the beginning of the 20th century, was a real phenomenon. The names of pianist Krzysztof Komeda, saxophonist Zbigniew Namyslowski and his partner trumpeter Tomat Stanko, saxophonist Michal Urbanyak are known to every music lover. Baurzhan Shukenov recalls, “There was plenty of Polish jazz! We listened to Polish jazz with great pleasure.” Leonid Aleksandrovich Pak, Batyr’s Kyzylorda teacher, also instilled love for this genre in his student. In fact, he became the man who brought Batyrkhan Shukenov to jazz.

“I came to school. Schoolchildren were sitting, looking at me. I told them, “I don’t do children ensembles”. They say, “We really want to play”. I asked them to show me the sheet music. And that’s why I stayed – honestly, when I looked at what kind of sheet music they had written down, I was horrified – what gibberish? That’s what I told them, “Guys, you can’t do that. There are rules in music. And music is not an easy thing.” That’s how me and the guys started practicing. Sometimes they came to the rehearsals of my “adult” ensemble, watched, listened, and sometimes we practiced together. But I understood that in order to have a serious class you have to listen to a lot of music in the first place. I have my own record collection, mostly jazz records. Some of them I found and got myself, and others were brought in by acquaintances from Moscow. So one day I called the boys over to my house and played them the music that was in my collection. Then I left the keys with Batyr and said that they could come to my house any time and listen to whatever they liked. Batyr, of course, liked to listen to saxophone players (alto players, because he himself had started studying alto saxophone). He listened to Paul Deadman – his saxophone sound was round, smooth. But most of all Batyr liked listening to Charles Parker, because he was a master of improvisation. And Batyr really liked improvisation. I always tried to tell the guys what they could play, what we could play. From jazz we played, for example, Klauz Lenz.”

“At the music school in Kyzyl-Orda, a children’s ensemble was created, which was called Dostyk at first, and then – Baldyrgan. Batyr came to the ensemble as a little boy. It was the only school ensemble of its kind in the country. We used to come to Alma-Ata, at Remizovka the Komsomol gathered big Komsomol parties with activists, and we performed at them.”

“For a long time I couldn’t understand why he was always nervous, angry and even scolded me when I made a mistake or played my part wrong: whether it was the clarinet part or the bass guitar part, it made no difference.
Many years later I began to analyze what it was all about. The reason was that he was demanding of both himself and his family. He did not like, even got offended, when the whole ensemble began to rehearse one and the same thing several times on end because of me. At that time, Baurzhan played ionica (keyboards), Batyr played saxophone, and I played bass guitar.”

Baurzhan and Batyr had a wonderful teacher at the music school named Borovikov – a brass musician. In times of Borovikov’s youth in each city of the USSR, practically on each large enterprise, there was a brass band, which played on holidays. That is how people were introduced to music. Then came the era of vocal-instrumental ensembles – VIA. The average VIA consisted of organ, bass guitar, drum, and wind instruments. Batyr’s older brother began playing classical wind instrument – clarinet – and looked closer to saxophone, and Batyr joined an ensemble under the guidance of Leonid Pak at music school as a boy, but at first he took bass guitar. He got good at it immediately, so to speak. Then Batyr switched to the saxophone, learning to play saxophone from the famous jazz saxophonists – Charlie Parker, Johnny Hodges.

“Who hasn’t visited them! The Shukenovs family was connected by many years of friendship with the “Kazakhstani nightingale” – Bibigul Tulegenova. The boys knew the singer from their early childhood and loved her dearly. When Bibigul Akhmetovna was on tour in Kyzyl-Orda, she always stayed at the Shukenovs’ instead of a hotel. Batyrkhan respected Bibigul Akhmetovna as his mother.”