LITHUANIAN JAZZ IN THE 1960s–1980s: THE SEARCH FOR AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL LANGUAGE

Abstract

This article is a retrospective of the development of jazz in Lithuania from local jazz bands in the 1960s to Lithuanian jazz masters in the 1980s. The article discusses how from the times of the Khrushchev Thaw, which began after Stalin’s death in 1953, up to Gorbachev’s perestroika, jazz was considered a phenomenon unacceptable to Soviet ideology and alien to Lithuanian culture. This article also looks at how the Iron Curtain and the period of long cultural isolation, the turmoil of the perestroika and the years of the national revival did not seem to interrupt the development of jazz. On the contrary, jazz took root in the realm of Soviet culture. Musicians with academic training began to play it, and it came to be identified with a manifestation of extraordinary creativity, entitled to employ even the most radical means of musical expression. This article is devoted to jazz festivals in Lithuania and dedicated to those Lithuanian free jazz musicians, the bands, performers, and composers of the period that continue to bring fame to Lithuanian jazz worldwide. The article has been written analysing music records, catalogues, books, periodicals and interviews of
contemporaries from the 1960s to the 1980s.