Alexey Kogan. Haruki Murakami. Portraits in Jazz. (Music illustrations). (2CD). /digi-pack/

"The idea to create these discs belongs to my radio listener from Dnipropetrovsk, Vladislav. Once, having called to my studio, he asked whether I had read the book by Haruki Murakami "Portraits in Jazz" and whether I would like to produce a cycle of radio programs using the music that Murakami recommends for listening to those who would read his jazz essays. I really liked the idea, and in a few days already it occurred to me that I would wish to "sound" Haruki Murakami's book. The final decision to work on the book was made after a few meetings with my friends, which refused buying "Portraits in Jazz" - i.e., why read the book if there is no opportunity to listen to what Haruki Murakami writes about?

The book contains 55 essays about geniuses of jazz. In my collection, as well as with the help of my friend Valentin Il'in, I managed to find 44 of the pieces mentioned in "Jazz Portraits". Later, I started selecting the essays I liked, as a result I ended with 19 of them - exactly fitting a double album. By the way, I still wonder why the author, Mr. Murakami, the owner of a unique, huge collection of jazz "vinyl", did not "sound" his book? I don't know...

It should be noted that in the process of the work I realized that I not always shared Murakami's point of view, however, in this concrete case, I was just conveying ideas of the refined connoisseur of jazz and the world famous (and fashionable) writer. It's not for me to judge what's come out as a result. I'm sure that all my possible flaws will be fully compensated for with the incredible, deep and clear music by outstanding jazz performers". Olexiy Kogan

(information from the CD booklet)

The book "Jazz Portraits" by Haruki Murakami was not officially published in Ukrainian - and all of the prose quotations in this release are in Russian. However, such discs are a chance to once again feel the conditional nature of language barriers. For the protagonist here is, all the same, not the text, and even not the velvet, cozy "voice over", but - music. And we are happy to offer to you this extremely inspired work by the Ukrainian jazz listener and story-teller, radio journalist, collectioner and attentive, refined enlightener - Olexiy Kogan. We offer it to you with gratitude.