Jazz in soviet Lithuania - a nonconformist niche introduction and subject of investigation

ENApart from the non-conformist niche which the jazz cafes and clubs represented, a further related phenomenon should be mentioned in this context: jazz was not only music, but a means of communication that transcended borders and which was laden with a variety of cultural symbols. As free cultural exchange was massively impeded by the Soviet system, media and transfer objects came to have immense importance. The US jazz program on short-wave radio created a window to the western world, the world of jazz. Suddenly, the Trio managed to be part of that world with its music. In this way, a wide audience became aware that modem culture and jazz existed in the East. To some extent, this medium enabled a window to be pushed open onto the East or, to put it another way, the East became part of the overall picture. It was possible, at least partly, to expand a one-sided communications structure and to open the niche to the wider public. It was not important to Lithuanians that the Trio was made of up two Russians and a Jew; they cared about the fact that the music was born and bred in Lithuania and that Vilnius had provided a place to produce free jazz, a place where musicians could improvise freely. They were proud of this Lithuanian "brand" (remember what Venclova said about Vilnius - "In its cafes you could hear the best jazz in the whole of the empire") and felt that the jazz phenomenon represented a strengthening of their own cultural identity. This was reflected in the increasing participation of native Lithuanians in the further evolving Lithuanian jazz scene of the 1980s.