The youth of the musician
- Batyr graduated from N.A. Ostrovsky School No. 233 in Kyzyl-Orda. After graduation, Batyr entered the N.K. Krupskaya Leningrad State Institute of Culture to study saxophone at the orchestral department. At that time his older brother had already been studying at that institute for two years. Baurzhan played the clarinet.
Batyr, like many artists, was strongly influenced by the music of The Beatles. In one of the interviews he told about the emotions he experienced when he first met the music of the great Liverpool Four and about the song that became his favorite for many years.
- “I remember all my first feelings and impressions from the song Across the Universe. To this day this song is my favorite. Back then I used to play it for days on end, then my mother would come to my room and say, “Balam, boldy endi!” (“Baby, enough already!” in Kazakh) And I would turn that song on at night and put it at a very low level, put the speaker to my ear and keep listening. It was such a powerful experience that can only happen to a person a few times in life.”
— Batyr
What did they listen to music on in the ‘70s and early ’80s?
- Baurzhan Shukenov:“In 1976, Stevie Wonder’s most popular album came out. In 1979, when Batyr came to Leningrad, it was the heyday of this disc. It was listened to everywhere. It was like a miracle. They listened to it on tape reels! If anybody had it, we’d get together and listen to it from beginning to end. You couldn’t rewind anything, because every rewind erased the tape.”
Tape reel (from Fr. bobbin, meaning tape reel) is a reel on which a flexible material, a magnetic tape with a musical recording, is wound.
- Study in LeningradBatyr enrolled at the Krupskaya Institute of Culture in Leningrad (now the St. Petersburg State Institute of Culture). The young man was good at several instruments, but, as expected, he chose the orchestra department for the saxophone class. He fell in love with the sound of this instrument when he was still in school. His teachers were the sax tenorist Vladimir Rabik and the world famous alto saxophonist Gennady Goldstein. Among Goldstein’s students are jazz musicians Igor Butman and Mikhail Chernov.
- “I was often lucky, especially to have good people, friends. I was very lucky with my teachers. When I arrived in Leningrad at the age of 17, there were so many brilliant musicians among my teachers that one can hardly find anywhere else today. They were true intellectuals of the deepest culture, which they had begun to comprehend back in the tsarist times”.
— Batyr
- Baurzhan Shukenov:“Batyr’s teachers didn’t pressure him, but helped him open up. I tried to get Batyr into classical things – to play with orchestras, there were a lot of great orchestras in St. Petersburg. It was a city of military academies – huge institutions that necessarily had bands where very strong musicians played. I remember the first time he played a saxophone solo with an orchestra, an excerpt from Georges Bizet’s, The Arlesian. The venerable brass players really liked Batyr’s playing. ‘The boy is good, the sound is interesting’, they said.”
With Vladislav Zaslavsky in Gorky, 1987.
- Batyr’s friend Vladislav Zaslavsky, who studied in the same department as Baurzhan Shukenov, created a band that included the saxophonist Batyr and the drummer Alexander Kochan (he later worked as director of A’Studio for a while). The guys worked at the Cinema House in St. Petersburg and played jazz-rock. Notably, the young Mikhail Boyarsky sang with them. Then Batyr started playing in big orchestras – they were popular, because orchestras played even at dances in suburban houses of culture. Batyr’s singing career also began in the orchestra, – he performed songs by Yegeniy Martynov. For example, “Natalie” – a dedication to Natalia Goncharova. At the same time Viktor Reznikov appeared and conquered Leningrad. Then everyone started singing only with Reznikov.
- “It was a very interesting time. Leningrad was full of musical events. Bauyrzhan and I used to go to jazz concerts, classical concerts, and for free, showing our student IDs. We went up to the gallery and watched with admiration the process on the stage. I remember the outstanding concerts of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the genius Evgeniy Mravinsky. Several teachers from our orchestra department played in this illustrious ensemble. For me, that was a very interesting time when my musical priorities were being formed. I didn’t limit myself to classical music, I also went to rock concerts and concerts of popular music. I remember a lasting impression of the concert of the Pesnyary band and the Arsenal band of Alexey Kozlov. Together with small jazz bands I experimented, played jazz standards, improvised. The course of study at the institute was structured in such a way that jazz dominated first of all and only then – classical music. In the saxophone class I played a variety of music, from jazz-rock to French composers.”
— Batyr
There was one particularly favorite saxophone in Batyr’s collection. The story of its appearance to the singer is remarkable. Studying at the Institute of Culture in Leningrad, he was on the lookout for the perfect instrument that would sound just right. The musician Valery Malgin worked at the institute’s department. He told Batyr that an old colleague of his – I think he had played in Utesov’s orchestra – was selling a saxophone. It turned out that it was an instrument of the most respected saxophone brand in the world, Selmer. A friend sent it to the owner from America. Although the saxophone had lain in a closet for years and they played it very little, the elderly musician parted with it reluctantly. It was a jubilee instrument, rare, with a very beautiful timbre, there were only three such instruments in Moscow. But when Batyr took the saxophone in his hands and started playing, he melted, “All right, young man. We’ll see”. In the end, Batyr managed to buy it for 1,000 rubles, a serious sum for those days. His parents and friends helped him raise some of the money, while Batyr earned some on his own.
Batyr and saxophone
Batyr transferred to the Kurmangazy Sagyrbaev Alma-Ata State Conservatory to the faculty of instrumental performance in the class of saxophone.
Conservatory in Almaty
- Baurzhan Shukenov:“I always knew that Batyr had huge potential. And once, when he came to Kyzyl-Orda for a vacation, I told him, “Move to Almaty! Go to the Conservatory! It would be very difficult to manifest your talent in St. Petersburg, because there are a million people like you there”. And in Kazakhstan, at that time, pop music was on the rise, there were a lot of very good orchestras. And Batyr said: “All right!” But it wasn’t easy – the conservatory had a brass department, but there was no saxophone class. Bibigul Akhmetovna Zhubanova, told Batyr’s story, and Gaziza Akhmetovna said: “Well, if there is no saxophone class, let’s open one! After all, we have our first student!” That’s how everything was solved”.
- Kuat Shildebayev:“I taught at the conservatory. Batyr was new, people used to say: “Look, there is a new musician.” I was interested in him. He would constantly wear headphones and a Walkman. At the time it was a rarity, and he stood out from the crowd even in his appearance.”
- “I remember it was in my fifth year, there was an incident on the state exam. The program was designed for 45 minutes. I even remember that I performed thirteenth in the program. After the fifth piece was over, I began to leave the stage, and my accompanist Emma Markovna – a terrific musician – was sitting there waiting for me. I thought to myself, “Why is she sitting there?” And suddenly I remembered with horror that there was one more piece left - Variations on a Theme of Paganini. Apparently, due to stress and worry, I had even forgotten what note the piece began with. When I saw the glass on the piano I went to it, without showing panic, drank some water (and all this was happening on stage, in a deadly silence, with the committee and the audience sitting there as well). When I returned to my seat I quickly glanced at the concertmaster’s notes, saw the B note, remembered everything, and calmed down. All in all, I got an “A”.
— Batyr
SHARE YOUR STORY
OUR instagram
follow us:
Supported by
