November 10, 2025 • 56 mins
Konstantin Efimov was born in 1958 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the elder (by 10 years) of two sons born to Igor Efimov, well-established movie actor, and his wife, Irina, whom he met while attending Moscow's prestigious Maly Theater School. Irina performed on stage until a few days before Kostia's birth. "That must be why I enjoy being on stage so much," says Kostia, who goes by his childhood nickname.
His parents chose to live in St. Petersburg to be close to Igor's elderly mother. In 1961, they signed a five-year contract with the Theater Group of the Soviet Army Force, performing in East Berlin. KGB regulations, however, did not allow them to bring Kostia, then age 2-½ with them. He stayed, as an "insurance policy," with his grandmother, Valya, living in a communal apartment that housed nine families (33 people) in 11 rooms, all sharing the same hallway, kitchen and bathroom. "The bathtub was always filled with laundry," Kostia recalls. "We took our baths twice a week in the community bathhouse."
As a child, Kostia displayed a tremendous interest in music, spending much time in front of the radio in his grandmother's tiny room. At age 4, a present was delivered to him from his parents -- a 1937 Wolkenhauer upright piano, upon which he soon learned to play hundreds of Russian folk songs. "It became the center of life in our home," Kostia remembers. "Even my pet rooster, Peter, used the lid as his favorite perch, and he would sit there and listen while I played."
Kostia's parents returned from East Germany in July of 1965, when he was 7. His grandmother died of a stroke the following month.
The same year, Kostia was accepted into a special music preparatory school of the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. For the next 11 years, each day involved four to six hours of piano practice. At the school he met his first great influence, teacher Tamara Karetkina. "I was her first student," Kostia recalls. "She was a tremendous pianist and a beautiful woman, very much resembling Jacqueline Bisset.”
Because of his talent, Kostia and other elite prodigies were forbidden to play sports, for fear of hand injuries. At 14, Kostia, who loved basketball, broke a finger in his right hand during a clandestine pick-up game. "I was so frightened," Kostia says. "The thought of not being able to play again was so horrifying! It was worse than death for me. I didn't tell my mother that I did it playing basketball; I told her I fell down carrying my briefcase." While his right hand healed, Kostia passed the time mastering pieces written by Ravel and Scriabin for left hand. Ravel's piece was composed in honor of a pianist who lost his right hand during World War I.
At 18, Kostia entered the famed St. Petersburg Conservatory. Here he met and studied under Vladimir Nielsen, one of the last great masters of Russian Romanticism. He completed his Conservatory studies in 1982 with advanced graduate degrees in four disciplines: concert (solo) pianist, pianist for chamber ensemble, accompanist, and piano teacher.
Following graduation, Kostia performed throughout Russia, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia as a soloist, with orchestras, with ethnic ensembles and his own jazz-fusion group. Typically, Conservatory graduates move into teaching. "I decided to go another way. I was already involved with jazz and pop performances, and I was pretty well known as an arranger, so I wanted to explore new music. Friends introduced me to Oscar Peterson, and modern jazz and progressive rock bands like Genesis, Yes and King Crimson. It was very different, extremely energetic, and absolutely spontaneous, like myself. I am definitely a free spirit, and playing this music allowed me a certain level of freedom that I wasn't able to explore in classical music."
Kostia received a proposal from the St. Petersburg Cultural Center to start, essentially, an experimental music group. "This was 1982," he says, "and things were warming up a little bit." Kostia called the group “ARS” -- Latin for "art.” While working with ARS, Kostia started composing and arranging music for movies, documentaries and theatrical productions. He freelanced as an arranger, working on a number of soundtracks for the various stage productions. His skills as a performer led him to work with some of the well-established Russian composers (i.e., Alfred Schnitke, Vladislav Uspensky, Vladislav Panchenko), and a number of Soviet pop stars, including Marina Kapuro and Aleksander Rosenbaum, among others.
During a visit to the United States in 1989 with the Soviet-American Cultural Exchange project "Clay Stomp," Kostia had an opportunity to perform for his first American audience at the Milwaukee Art Museum, where he shared the stage with Narada artist David Lanz. That day changed Kostia's life forever. The next morning he received a call from Narada records
His parents chose to live in St. Petersburg to be close to Igor's elderly mother. In 1961, they signed a five-year contract with the Theater Group of the Soviet Army Force, performing in East Berlin. KGB regulations, however, did not allow them to bring Kostia, then age 2-½ with them. He stayed, as an "insurance policy," with his grandmother, Valya, living in a communal apartment that housed nine families (33 people) in 11 rooms, all sharing the same hallway, kitchen and bathroom. "The bathtub was always filled with laundry," Kostia recalls. "We took our baths twice a week in the community bathhouse."
As a child, Kostia displayed a tremendous interest in music, spending much time in front of the radio in his grandmother's tiny room. At age 4, a present was delivered to him from his parents -- a 1937 Wolkenhauer upright piano, upon which he soon learned to play hundreds of Russian folk songs. "It became the center of life in our home," Kostia remembers. "Even my pet rooster, Peter, used the lid as his favorite perch, and he would sit there and listen while I played."
Kostia's parents returned from East Germany in July of 1965, when he was 7. His grandmother died of a stroke the following month.
The same year, Kostia was accepted into a special music preparatory school of the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. For the next 11 years, each day involved four to six hours of piano practice. At the school he met his first great influence, teacher Tamara Karetkina. "I was her first student," Kostia recalls. "She was a tremendous pianist and a beautiful woman, very much resembling Jacqueline Bisset.”
Because of his talent, Kostia and other elite prodigies were forbidden to play sports, for fear of hand injuries. At 14, Kostia, who loved basketball, broke a finger in his right hand during a clandestine pick-up game. "I was so frightened," Kostia says. "The thought of not being able to play again was so horrifying! It was worse than death for me. I didn't tell my mother that I did it playing basketball; I told her I fell down carrying my briefcase." While his right hand healed, Kostia passed the time mastering pieces written by Ravel and Scriabin for left hand. Ravel's piece was composed in honor of a pianist who lost his right hand during World War I.
At 18, Kostia entered the famed St. Petersburg Conservatory. Here he met and studied under Vladimir Nielsen, one of the last great masters of Russian Romanticism. He completed his Conservatory studies in 1982 with advanced graduate degrees in four disciplines: concert (solo) pianist, pianist for chamber ensemble, accompanist, and piano teacher.
Following graduation, Kostia performed throughout Russia, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia as a soloist, with orchestras, with ethnic ensembles and his own jazz-fusion group. Typically, Conservatory graduates move into teaching. "I decided to go another way. I was already involved with jazz and pop performances, and I was pretty well known as an arranger, so I wanted to explore new music. Friends introduced me to Oscar Peterson, and modern jazz and progressive rock bands like Genesis, Yes and King Crimson. It was very different, extremely energetic, and absolutely spontaneous, like myself. I am definitely a free spirit, and playing this music allowed me a certain level of freedom that I wasn't able to explore in classical music."
Kostia received a proposal from the St. Petersburg Cultural Center to start, essentially, an experimental music group. "This was 1982," he says, "and things were warming up a little bit." Kostia called the group “ARS” -- Latin for "art.” While working with ARS, Kostia started composing and arranging music for movies, documentaries and theatrical productions. He freelanced as an arranger, working on a number of soundtracks for the various stage productions. His skills as a performer led him to work with some of the well-established Russian composers (i.e., Alfred Schnitke, Vladislav Uspensky, Vladislav Panchenko), and a number of Soviet pop stars, including Marina Kapuro and Aleksander Rosenbaum, among others.
During a visit to the United States in 1989 with the Soviet-American Cultural Exchange project "Clay Stomp," Kostia had an opportunity to perform for his first American audience at the Milwaukee Art Museum, where he shared the stage with Narada artist David Lanz. That day changed Kostia's life forever. The next morning he received a call from Narada records
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Then the.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Nottingthing do the.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
The thank you so much?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
All right?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Was that for you?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
That was for you?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
And that's on the album Sweet Say p No, that's
oh okay on ten Pebbles. So you may not know this,
but Kostia was born into a family of artists. His
mother and father are well known actors in movies and
(05:19):
quite quite a home life. And so I'm curious what
was it like growing up in that kind of a world.
And then especially there was a time when your parents
they had to leave you behind and they had to
go and work in Berlin.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
What was that?
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Share a little bit about that that part of your childhood.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
First of all, growing up with actors, it's just like
my parents were just mom and dad. You know, I
didn't care that they were actors. It was a little
tricky walking in the street with my dad because everyone
was like taking a double look this guice. I know him,
so everyone knew my dad and but otherwise, you know,
(06:00):
it was just absolutely normal environment about Berlin. Yes, when
I was two years old, my mom and dad I
just signed a contract with a Russian language theater in
Berlin in Potsdam. Actually it's an old theater and it
was sizable community by the way, Russian community in Berlin.
(06:23):
So that was kind of that's what they were doing
for five years. And I was going to go with them,
but you know, KGB said, no, he's not going anywhere
you are going. You know, you signed the contract, but
he is going to stay here. And that was it.
You know, it was kind of insurance policy kind of,
(06:46):
because a lot of people were defecting, you know, they
would go with family and they would just split, you know,
West Berlin was right there. So I was left behind
with my grandma. And she was phenomenal. She was great.
I loved her, and she was very musical by the way.
She was Ukrainian, so we were singing like Ukrainian songs
(07:08):
and Russian songs as well. And I have to say
that she probably played the biggest role as far as
like sparkling my interest in music. And so I wasn't
with her for five years. So Mom and Dad were visiting,
you know, a couple times a year, and people wrote
(07:30):
letters back then, so there was a lot of letters
and pictures and letters and it was just wonderful. But
it was you know, when my grandma died, I was
seven years old. So Mom and Dad came back from Berlin,
and Dad started a totally new life because I didn't
really know them. I knew my grandma, but that was
(07:51):
a big adjustment for me, you know. But my mom
had the iron fist, God bless her soul. That was
great because I was very unruly when I was seven,
and you know, but then I I was enrolled in
this school very much like Juilliard School, you know, so
(08:12):
for gifted kids. That's that's a kind of material for
a book or something. I call it forced music labor camp. Yeah. Well,
can you imagine seven year old kid who had to
practice six hours every day and would start like playing
for an hour playing scales. If you think you know
(08:33):
what boredom is, no, try to play scales for an hour.
So I was ready to quit when I was eleven,
and my mom said, my mom said come again. I said,
I'm quitting, you know, I said, oh, dear, you don't
have this option. And that was the end of it.
I'm so glad that she was like that because she
(08:56):
knew better. I had my own ideas, you know, playing
sci als, you know, playing piano, and I love piano,
by the way, but you know, six hours come on,
you know, and like, how about no, I would choose
playing you know, soccer from with my with my friends outside,
you know, like no, my mom said, no, you have
(09:18):
to practice six hours every day and no weekends and
no vacations. Let's go.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Let's go back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yes, I'm sorry, I can't.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
I want to go back.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Your age, your four yeah, I was four on your.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Parents send you an upright piano?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
So what that?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
That's kind of like I still remember this day.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah, tell us about your first introduce.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Well, first of all, my grandma and she wrote a
letter to my mom and dad and said, well, he's
he loves music, you know, so I brought him to
some local you know, like a school, taking private lessons
for a violin. I hated violin. I understand now why
(10:05):
I hated. Now I love violin, but back then, you
take just take this violin, and you take this ball
and you move it even just slightly, and it sounds
like a million cats are dying, you know, and it
just sounded so horrible. It was just my aesthetic self
was rebelling against it. Obviously, so I didn't know that
(10:29):
it will get better. It sounded to me like it
will never get better. But with a piano, you play
a chord and it's there and it's beautiful. It's like
angels are singing, you know. Forget about the cats. So
every opportunity I had to damage the violin, I did
(10:49):
damage the violin, so I could not play it for
a couple of weeks before it was getting repaired. So obviously,
and my grandma realized, she got the message to it, Okay,
that's not the instrument for him, and she said, well,
but he likes piano because you know, when school they
had pianos, so I would come and start doing something noodling.
(11:10):
I still noodle, by the way. So they said, okay,
we'll get him a piano. And I remember it was
a sunny day. It was a summertime, and this big
truck arrived right up front of our house and my
grandma and I were standing outside waiting because we had
to tell him where to go. And you know, so
(11:32):
this door opens and there's a piano strapped to the
side of the truck, you know, so it would not
fall down. And I fell in love right away. It
was beautiful, and so they brought it in our room.
I always said, how so we didn't know it was
an apartment building. Well, okay, that's not even true. It
(11:54):
wasn't apartment building. It was just an old mansion which
a big family, you know, very wealthy, lived right downtown
Saint Petersburg, only like one hundred and fifty yards away
from Care of Ballet and from conservatory and from my
school which I went to eventually. So after nineteen seventeen,
(12:16):
after Russian Revolution, this guy was kicked out unfortunately, probably
ended up in Paris. I feel so sorry for him.
And this house was given to, you know, just a
regular folks, like my great grandman grew in great or.
But so can you imagine like a big apartment, and
(12:40):
it was split. All these rooms were split in a
little tiny compartments. I would not even call them rooms
because they were like our room was split in half.
One half was five feet but five feet wide, and
another half was five feet wide. And here's my piano,
which takes the I don't know half of this room.
(13:02):
It was horrible, but the ceilings were twenty feet tall.
Can you imagine, so this little tiny thing and you
like look up, well just like here, you know. So anyhow,
here's this piano. And I started playing twenty four to seven.
I'm not sure if all the people because that was
a big apartment. We had eleven rooms, but nine families
(13:26):
lived in these eleven rooms. We had one kitchen and
one bathroom. Yeah, and I remember, you know, like five o'clock,
people are coming back home and there's a line in
the hallway, so you want to go to the bathroom.
Who is the Are you in line? Yes? I am.
You know people you take a book and you read
until your turn comes. Well, anyhow, that was interesting and
(13:50):
all this because these rooms were split in little tiny compartments.
As I said, this compartment walls were just paper thin,
so you could hear everything what was going on. Somebody's
arguing and the other side of the apartment, somebody's taking sides.
Well she's right, no, he's right, you know, and where
(14:11):
people shared lives, by the way, and it's horrible as
it sounds, but that was. It was like a little tribe.
You know, people helped each other and celebrated everything together.
You know, somebody had a birthday, come on, you know,
just people would come and bring salads into the potlock
kind of thing, and that was wonderful. And so that's
(14:34):
the apartment we lived in, and so I started playing
this piano and I'm not sure people liked it or not,
but nobody said anything, so I assumed it was fine.
I'm not sure they liked this app later on, if
they liked the scales I played, that was probably a torture.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Hey, let's let's move on now. From a little upright piano, yeah,
to your formal training yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Music force, music labor campaign.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Yeah, it really gets heavy. But then we talk a
bit about the formal training, but also at the end
of it, many of your classmates, the idea was you
would go on and you would be a professor, you
would teach music, but you chose another direction. That is,
you got interested in fusion and jazz and pop, and
you went a different route from others. So talk a
(15:24):
little bit about your formal education decision to go the
way you did in music.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Yeah, the decision, I'm not even sure if that's a decision,
just just like you are saying, well, that's gout's provisioned,
you know, whatever whatever you would call it. But yes,
I have formal education, you know, I've graduated from Saint
Petersburg Conservatory, so I have We don't have this PhD
and masters and stuff like that. Now probably do, but
(15:53):
back then, so my degree was between PhD and master's degree.
So the program is five years and for six years,
and I got my piano playing degree is a performer,
but our degree was it was a triple degree. So
I graduated as a concert performer, piano player, as a teacher,
(16:17):
and as an accompanist. So I had these three things,
three degrees, and obviously studied all of them. So the
formal training was brutal, and yeah, brutal, gruesome, I can
come up with some other words. But it was very,
(16:41):
very tough. But when you when you don't know how
to play or something is not happening, so it's a torture.
But when you gain certain degree of freedom, then it's
a blessing. You still have to work really hard, you know,
or to memorize the music and work on it so
you you and it was difficult, uh, and we had
(17:04):
some other things to do. It's not just piano playing.
History of music, you know, early music, medieval music, and
you know, you just name it history of music and
soulfage and and on harmony and polyphonics and orchestration and
everything else. So that was. That's how it was.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
What did you played other songs? Share a little bit
about what you're going to play next, and let's hear another.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Song, another song. I have some songs.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Got your list down?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I know the quest list question. I don't have a setlist.
I actually always make a set list and I put
it right over here and I never look at it,
just play whatever. But yeah, well you asked me how
I ended up doing what I am doing. So playing
jazz was not or pop as well. Was frowned upon
(18:00):
conservatory and there was a reason for it. Not because
they were so backwards, you know, Lloyd's a bad music. No,
but no one said that, by the way, but they
were saying time, which you dedicate to playing jazz and pop,
you're not spending learning classical thing. And it's a absolutely
different way of playing. I remember that I really like jazz,
(18:24):
but I learned, really learned how to play it when
I saw on TV, which was a very rare occasion,
by the way, a double you know, it was a snippet,
you know, twenty minutes maybe out of concert from Prague.
I think it was it was Count Basie, then Oscar Peterson,
a dueling pianist and just seeing how they are doing it.
(18:45):
That's like light bulb just went on. Ah, Now I
understand what's going on because in jazz a lot of
it is attitude. It's not just playing right notes at
the right time. It's an attitude. If you don't half
his attitude, that it's not going to sound good.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Really.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
So anyhow, when I decided that I want to do
it anyway, and I had some heated discussions with my
professors about that, but I, you know, maybe I'm stubborn.
I don't know. So I was doing jazz, I was
learning how to do that, how to orchestrate jazz and
fusion and even rock and just all of it is
(19:29):
kind of it comes from your ear. You have to
listen to it. In classical music, unfortunately, I have to
say a lot of it comes from notes. Here the notes,
here's the music right up front of you, and you
just kind of figure it out and you just follow
the music. So I always felt like, there's my freedom
is limited, you know in that. Now I understand that
(19:50):
it's just it's not as simple as that. But the
main appeal in jazz and pub was this incredible freedom
of expression. So I started doing that, and I had
my own band and we were recording, and we were
doing a lot of soundtracks, and so it was kind
of I made a name for myself as an orchestrator
(20:11):
in Saint Petersburg and as a jazz player. But when
I came over here, you know, now, I discovered a
lot of things which I was totally unaware of in
the world of jazz and pop, and met a lot
of great musicians still playing with them, like Daryl Sturmer,
(20:33):
which was like a school in itself pretty much. But
I love doing it. I think it's it's great. I'll
play for you something you know, not classical at all.
I'll play for you. This popular song from the movie
(20:54):
movie soundtrack almost didn't make it to the movie because
director didn't like it. He was saying, no, that's just
it's so sappy whatever, No, it's not a good idea.
And our lead actress, she's too small to sink this
stuff anyway, she's too young to sing this stuff. No,
he didn't like the song. Somebody, I'm glad that whoever
(21:15):
this person was, took him into actually having this song.
He said, no, no, come on, you just give her
a chance. Let her sing, you know, and it's a
good song. And now it's the best song ever of
soundtrack that it's considered to be the best soundtrack song ever. Okay,
well I'll play it for you. There's a mike connection as.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Well as a thing. After I get the mating.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Anything a.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Thing, the thing, expect the.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Lead.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Now there's a turning point in your story. November nineteen
eighty nine, October.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
October October, I think it was October twenty first.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Ah, what happened that brings you to Milwaukee?
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Oh, well, that's another couple hours, you know, we have
two minutes two minutes. Well, yeah, I was accompanying a
mural from Saint Petersburg, Russia to Milwaukee. There's a teacher
in the Milwaukee area. He's from Heartland, Joel Fifer. His
(26:39):
name is. He's an art teacher. He taught at Arrowhead
High School and my friend was friends with him. So
that's how I was introduced to him in Saint Petersburg
and he asked me if I would get involved with
this project creating a mural. It's an some Milwaukee mural
(27:02):
which was created by people of Milwaukee, not professional artists,
but people was brought to Saint Petersburg, and people in
Saint Petersburg created a mural which was brought to Milwaukee.
Now it's at the airport by the way, Milwaukee Airport
on the wall. There's even my signature there. How glamorous.
(27:25):
So anyhow, I was involved in creating this mural, and
when it came to transportation, you know, I didn't have
no idea how I ended up being responsible for that.
I don't know. If somebody tricked me into it, I
don't know. But you know, here I am negotiating talking
(27:46):
to a person in a Baltic shipping company because somebody
from airflot which was the largest airplane and air company
the airline in the world, suggested that I would talk
to them, and he said, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I will
bring this mural no problem. And I said, okay, Well,
(28:08):
the biggest question is how much it's going to cost? Right,
how much money is going to cost? And said, oh,
don't worry about it, will just sponsor it. Like wow,
I said, well, how about like, how can we pack it?
Can you give a suggestion? Said, oh, don't worry about it,
we'll just pack it as well, And well, how much
is that, I said, oh yeah, I told you, We'll
(28:29):
just sponsor all of that. So we ended up shipping
this mural two Milwaukee for no cost because the shipping
Botting shipping company decided to sponsor this project, which was great,
and I was so happy. I was leaving his office
and by the way, he was like a foulest mouth
I've ever encountered, Like, out of one hundred words he uttered,
(28:53):
maybe ten were okay, but you know the rest of
them were But you know, I understood what he's saying.
I guess. So he was a very rough individual. I'm
not even sure if he is a life or somebody
took him out because of his bad mouth. But anyhow,
when I was leaving his office, he said, hey, do
(29:14):
you want to be on this ship? I said, what
do you mean? I said, well, I mean we have
like six beds on the ship free right now, because
we usually have these guys who paint, the painters who
paint like pat shop paint on a ship, and they're
(29:35):
not coming this time. So we have these six beds available,
bunk beds. Obviously, I'm like, of course I would love to.
He said, okay, consider it done. When are we leaving
you know, like in three weeks. Okay, so I have
to get my visa. In all of that, I had
a top to make a long story, very long story,
(29:56):
very short, or as short as I can. You know.
I ended up on the ship and we came right
to Milwaukee because when I talked to him, I said, yeah,
but okay, we're coming like Boston and New York or
New Orleans, and how about transporting it to Milwaukee? Said oh, no,
we'll come. We'll bring you right to Milwaukee. I said,
(30:17):
how it's right in the middle of the continent. I said, oh,
there's a system of Locke, Saint Lawrence seaway, You'll be fine.
So I ended up on the ship. I was so excited,
and I came over here. By the way, I did
know that I have a sea like what is it?
What is it called sea sickness? Right, I had no
(30:38):
idea that I have one, so right, and when we
on the top like in the North Sea, we came
out of Baltic Sea, ended up in the North Sea.
It's like, oh my god, how I deal with that?
You know? But I survived and it was a lot
of fun, nevertheless, And we came to Milwaukee, and I
played an unveiling of this mural in Milwaukee Art Museum,
(30:59):
the old one old building, and there were some people
from recording company. It was the biggest new age recording
company in the world at the time, called Norada Records.
And some people still have cassettes and CDs in LPs.
You know, so, John, those are time talking but yes, exactly,
(31:22):
so anyhow, that's they came to me cold Actually a
person I was saying with and said, hey, we would
like to sign the recording contract with this guy. But
the Russian guy, Well, the problem is I didn't didn't
speak any English none, So I'm like, okay, I have
(31:42):
no idea. I mean, well we figured it out obviously,
but figuring out the language that was something else. I
knew two words and one expression. That's how I figured
out the rest of the language. You just have to
have like a couple of words one expression. Words were yes,
well that's good, no a very useful word, and one
(32:05):
expression thank you very much. And I remember that the
person I was who I was staying with. His name
is Jim Olsmith, great guitarist by the way, and a
wonderful journalist. So he was very patient with me and
I really appreciate it, especially now. He asked me, are
(32:25):
you hungry? And I'm like, okay, here it comes. You know,
I have no idea what he's saying, but I have
a choice to say yes, thank you very much or no,
thank you very much. And I thought, if I'll say no,
thank you very much, I never will figure out what
he's saying. But if I'll say yes, thank you very much,
then probably something will come out of it. Sure enough,
(32:47):
he brought me a big meal. I'm like, aha, one
more word, hungry, hungry me hungry. So anyhow, that was
an interesting and now before you know it, you know,
I started kind of talking people forgave all my horrible
(33:07):
mistakes I made and the mispronunciation of some words, which
was pretty embarrassing in some instances, but I won't go
into that. But anyhow, that's so I ended the top
over here, you know, and getting involved in musical community.
(33:28):
Somebody introduced me to Darryls Turmer right around this, probably
a couple of weeks after I met El Williams at
the studio one week after I arrived, because Norada Records
brought me to the studio and Elle was working at
AD Productions Mike Hansi's studio. So I met Elle thirty
(33:51):
six years ago. That's a long time. So anyhow I
end the top, I'm meeting darryl' sturmer and at this
pretty cool point, I already figured out a couple more awards.
So I told him I like Genesis. It's Darely saying, well,
(34:12):
he was sucking up to me from the get go,
but he always tells this story and I always roll
my eyes, but you know it's true. It's very true.
That's what I said. And before you know it, maybe
within six months, Darryl actually asked me if I would
play with him and his band, and I started playing
(34:34):
with him his band. So it's been thirty five years
already with Daryl, and well here I am, here I
am yeah, thirty six years later. Yeah, thank you, thank you,
thank you, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Do you want to share something that you did with Nurata.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Norada? Yes, Norada and they are.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Whatever you want to play Bluette?
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah sure, Well actually you know it's a good segue.
It's not on my list, but I'll play it anyway.
That's the actually Norada. What actually Narada asked me to do.
They said Okay, we really want to sign a recording
contact with you, but we have to go through certain procedures.
You have to uh record a demo. So I recorded
(35:30):
a demo and a cassette. And the person who really
helped me, his name is Micro Dysovich. He's the are
you familiar with the Serbian restaurant called old Town Old
Town Restaurant All Town Restaurant by was owned by a
very good friend of mine, late friend of mine, unfortunately,
(35:51):
Alex ro Dysovitch, and he had a couple of kids,
well three actually, and one of them is Micro Dysovitch,
wonderful musician. And so Jim Olschmidt, who I was staying with,
he knew Mike and asked Mike to help me to
record a demo. And the song I'm going to play
(36:12):
for you that was on this demo, and then later
on I recorded it for my album Sweet Saint Petersburg.
It's called Secret Garden.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
In the commun It's one of my favorites.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Thank you so much. We're starting to wind down a
little bit, so I've got another question for you. You've
you've performed with legends, you've worked on huge stages, but
yet you find you're also in this intimate setting of
(41:50):
your church every.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Week, every week, every Sunday.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
Yeah, Doc, you'll share a bit about that experience and
your faith and what how this kind of thing you
treasure and what it means to you, this intimate kind
of place to perform and be a part of music.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
In well, in my opinion, that's actually the best place
to perform because it's all it's all meaningful. That's a
very good question. Big stage is fine. I like big stages,
(42:33):
but playing like there's a reason why back is my
favorite composer. Buck spent his entire life in the church
playing church music. Well, I grew up in a very
spiritual family. I can't say that we were church goers.
(42:53):
And Russian Orthodox church is very structured, in very strict
as well. There are some beautiful things about it I
really love and cherish, but you know, because it's so strict,
you just go to the church and there's always someone says,
(43:16):
oh you can stand over here, okay, Oh you can't
have your hand right behind your back, you know, okay?
And you whoever like women, for example, they have to
cover their hands with scarf and if you don't, then
somebody is going to tell you that you are like,
(43:36):
it's a blasphemy and know all this stuff. I don't
want to say anything bad about it, but but I
always had this apprehension towards clergy. I have to say that.
That's when Common told me, I think you will love
this guy, the pastor at the church. I'm like, oh no, yeah,
(44:01):
well I was. It was a big surprise because that's
not what I expected, obviously, But that's what I like
about this church, that it's not what you expect. It's
something actually so meaningful. And by the way, I love
our church and I love all of you. Thank you
so much. I can't tell you how thank you, thank you.
(44:25):
I can't tell you, thank you, how honored I am
to be here with you every Sunday and play for
you and praise God with you, and to be with
you today. When Lannie told me about this event, I'm like,
will come. Who needs to hear my stories? I mean,
(44:50):
Lannie knows all my stories because we get together and
I'll tell him all these stories. Then you know, he
probably feels like, Okay, I got to stop him somehow.
Oh gosh, here's Scotch. How about that. Okay, that's good,
that's good. But I feel honored and privileged that you
came to hear all my talking and playing. Thank you
(45:13):
so much. I appreciate that. And just to answer your
question about the church and the faith, I have a
friend who in the top. He developed a schizophrenia and
the top in medical facility for a long time. I
met him on the street. I think I told his
(45:34):
story and so it's a torture obviously. And when I
talked to him, he said, you know, I figured out
one thing that when everything makes sense but has no meaning,
that's where the hell is. And everything makes sense, but
it doesn't really matter at all. You are totally indifferent
(45:55):
to it and it has no meaning, no higher meaning
for you. And I think that without actually having this
meaning in your life, life is I'm not even sure
worth living, you know. And that's that's where the hell starts.
Like oh do I even should continue that or not?
But what our community, because it's a community. It's not
(46:18):
just a building, obviously, it's a beautiful building, but it's
all of you, and it's all of us which give
a meaning to what we what we do for each other, obviously.
And I think I always had this feeling because for me,
everything is feeling. It's not just words, though I can
(46:40):
talk forever, but I think music is a pure feeling.
Being connected with God is a feeling because there's no
explanation to it of any kind. To me, there are
only two proofs that God exists. It's love, which is
(47:05):
absolutely I mean, nothing would exist without it, even in
a liturgical sense of it. If God would not love
the world, it would not create it, right, And that's
how I feel love and art. Art is absolutely useless.
(47:29):
It is no purpose, right except for praising whatever you see.
Same with love. You know, without love and love, then
if you love something, you will do all the sacrifices.
If you don't, you will be thinking what can I
get out of it? No, that's not how faith works, right,
(47:52):
like you were talking about it today, you know, well
you talk about it every Sunday. And I think for me,
it's it's like discovering my center. That's what Carmen broke
me to the church. I started coming over here and playing.
That's when I when, That's exactly when I found my
I don't know a begbone if you will of my life.
(48:14):
So I want to thank you all of you for them.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
By thank you by the way, he's got one more song,
one more song, but there's I'd like just to say
for you to be aware of Donny Kate Wilson.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Where are you?
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Raise your hands?
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Where are you?
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Are you still in the room. They they were the underwriters,
a sponsor of this event, the meal. We thank you,
thank you so much. We we knew this would be good.
But if we could feed you a little bit, that
would be well. And thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Just so you're aware.
Speaker 4 (48:48):
Uh, there's there's a table out back there and there's
a few recordings of Coastia. They're not for sale. Okay,
there's an Essential coast You and then this album here
Still Still Still this. Uh, it's another story when Colsi
shares about how he was introduced to Christmas music.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
A couple hours three hours.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
Yeah, and he's gonna be playing more of still Still
Still as we enter into advent and Christmas. Where you
have his style to those hymns that we're familiar with. Uh,
Ted and Ray clemb they were the underwriters. They produced
this CD. They realized that we need to we need
to record this and so it still lives on after
all these years. And thank you Ted and Renee we
(49:32):
just want to thank you. So there's a table back
there and there's some there. I think that's all that
you have left of everything, right, yes, okay, so if
you want to take one, you can take one. But
if you want to be generous, I'm gonna embarrass him
he does it. I'm going to do this if you
want to. There's a tip jar. People used to tip
(49:53):
jars when they gig. Wouldn't it be marvelous that if
he had a good tip? I mean he's not gigging
for a few weeks. So it was Carmen's wearing with
Willie Porter that gone it. I know, oh my, But
if you'd just like to give a token, because because
he's not he has a place to live, but we
we don't. You know, his cash is when he plays,
(50:15):
and so anything we can do that that that supports Coastya,
we want to do that. So take a CD, be generous.
There's also a vemo if you want to do an
online event as well, and so play your last song
for us and anything you want to say and thank
you all for coming and being a part of this
great event.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
And da
Then the.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Nottingthing do the.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
The thank you so much?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
All right?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Was that for you?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
That was for you?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
And that's on the album Sweet Say p No, that's
oh okay on ten Pebbles. So you may not know this,
but Kostia was born into a family of artists. His
mother and father are well known actors in movies and
(05:19):
quite quite a home life. And so I'm curious what
was it like growing up in that kind of a world.
And then especially there was a time when your parents
they had to leave you behind and they had to
go and work in Berlin.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
What was that?
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Share a little bit about that that part of your childhood.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
First of all, growing up with actors, it's just like
my parents were just mom and dad. You know, I
didn't care that they were actors. It was a little
tricky walking in the street with my dad because everyone
was like taking a double look this guice. I know him,
so everyone knew my dad and but otherwise, you know,
(06:00):
it was just absolutely normal environment about Berlin. Yes, when
I was two years old, my mom and dad I
just signed a contract with a Russian language theater in
Berlin in Potsdam. Actually it's an old theater and it
was sizable community by the way, Russian community in Berlin.
(06:23):
So that was kind of that's what they were doing
for five years. And I was going to go with them,
but you know, KGB said, no, he's not going anywhere
you are going. You know, you signed the contract, but
he is going to stay here. And that was it.
You know, it was kind of insurance policy kind of,
(06:46):
because a lot of people were defecting, you know, they
would go with family and they would just split, you know,
West Berlin was right there. So I was left behind
with my grandma. And she was phenomenal. She was great.
I loved her, and she was very musical by the way.
She was Ukrainian, so we were singing like Ukrainian songs
(07:08):
and Russian songs as well. And I have to say
that she probably played the biggest role as far as
like sparkling my interest in music. And so I wasn't
with her for five years. So Mom and Dad were visiting,
you know, a couple times a year, and people wrote
(07:30):
letters back then, so there was a lot of letters
and pictures and letters and it was just wonderful. But
it was you know, when my grandma died, I was
seven years old. So Mom and Dad came back from Berlin,
and Dad started a totally new life because I didn't
really know them. I knew my grandma, but that was
(07:51):
a big adjustment for me, you know. But my mom
had the iron fist, God bless her soul. That was
great because I was very unruly when I was seven,
and you know, but then I I was enrolled in
this school very much like Juilliard School, you know, so
(08:12):
for gifted kids. That's that's a kind of material for
a book or something. I call it forced music labor camp. Yeah. Well,
can you imagine seven year old kid who had to
practice six hours every day and would start like playing
for an hour playing scales. If you think you know
(08:33):
what boredom is, no, try to play scales for an hour.
So I was ready to quit when I was eleven,
and my mom said, my mom said come again. I said,
I'm quitting, you know, I said, oh, dear, you don't
have this option. And that was the end of it.
I'm so glad that she was like that because she
(08:56):
knew better. I had my own ideas, you know, playing
sci als, you know, playing piano, and I love piano,
by the way, but you know, six hours come on,
you know, and like, how about no, I would choose
playing you know, soccer from with my with my friends outside,
you know, like no, my mom said, no, you have
(09:18):
to practice six hours every day and no weekends and
no vacations. Let's go.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Let's go back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yes, I'm sorry, I can't.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
I want to go back.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Your age, your four yeah, I was four on your.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Parents send you an upright piano?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
So what that?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
That's kind of like I still remember this day.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah, tell us about your first introduce.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Well, first of all, my grandma and she wrote a
letter to my mom and dad and said, well, he's
he loves music, you know, so I brought him to
some local you know, like a school, taking private lessons
for a violin. I hated violin. I understand now why
(10:05):
I hated. Now I love violin, but back then, you
take just take this violin, and you take this ball
and you move it even just slightly, and it sounds
like a million cats are dying, you know, and it
just sounded so horrible. It was just my aesthetic self
was rebelling against it. Obviously, so I didn't know that
(10:29):
it will get better. It sounded to me like it
will never get better. But with a piano, you play
a chord and it's there and it's beautiful. It's like
angels are singing, you know. Forget about the cats. So
every opportunity I had to damage the violin, I did
(10:49):
damage the violin, so I could not play it for
a couple of weeks before it was getting repaired. So obviously,
and my grandma realized, she got the message to it, Okay,
that's not the instrument for him, and she said, well,
but he likes piano because you know, when school they
had pianos, so I would come and start doing something noodling.
(11:10):
I still noodle, by the way. So they said, okay,
we'll get him a piano. And I remember it was
a sunny day. It was a summertime, and this big
truck arrived right up front of our house and my
grandma and I were standing outside waiting because we had
to tell him where to go. And you know, so
(11:32):
this door opens and there's a piano strapped to the
side of the truck, you know, so it would not
fall down. And I fell in love right away. It
was beautiful, and so they brought it in our room.
I always said, how so we didn't know it was
an apartment building. Well, okay, that's not even true. It
(11:54):
wasn't apartment building. It was just an old mansion which
a big family, you know, very wealthy, lived right downtown
Saint Petersburg, only like one hundred and fifty yards away
from Care of Ballet and from conservatory and from my
school which I went to eventually. So after nineteen seventeen,
(12:16):
after Russian Revolution, this guy was kicked out unfortunately, probably
ended up in Paris. I feel so sorry for him.
And this house was given to, you know, just a
regular folks, like my great grandman grew in great or.
But so can you imagine like a big apartment, and
(12:40):
it was split. All these rooms were split in a
little tiny compartments. I would not even call them rooms
because they were like our room was split in half.
One half was five feet but five feet wide, and
another half was five feet wide. And here's my piano,
which takes the I don't know half of this room.
(13:02):
It was horrible, but the ceilings were twenty feet tall.
Can you imagine, so this little tiny thing and you
like look up, well just like here, you know. So anyhow,
here's this piano. And I started playing twenty four to seven.
I'm not sure if all the people because that was
a big apartment. We had eleven rooms, but nine families
(13:26):
lived in these eleven rooms. We had one kitchen and
one bathroom. Yeah, and I remember, you know, like five o'clock,
people are coming back home and there's a line in
the hallway, so you want to go to the bathroom.
Who is the Are you in line? Yes? I am.
You know people you take a book and you read
until your turn comes. Well, anyhow, that was interesting and
(13:50):
all this because these rooms were split in little tiny compartments.
As I said, this compartment walls were just paper thin,
so you could hear everything what was going on. Somebody's
arguing and the other side of the apartment, somebody's taking sides.
Well she's right, no, he's right, you know, and where
(14:11):
people shared lives, by the way, and it's horrible as
it sounds, but that was. It was like a little tribe.
You know, people helped each other and celebrated everything together.
You know, somebody had a birthday, come on, you know,
just people would come and bring salads into the potlock
kind of thing, and that was wonderful. And so that's
(14:34):
the apartment we lived in, and so I started playing
this piano and I'm not sure people liked it or not,
but nobody said anything, so I assumed it was fine.
I'm not sure they liked this app later on, if
they liked the scales I played, that was probably a torture.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Hey, let's let's move on now. From a little upright piano, yeah,
to your formal training yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Music force, music labor campaign.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Yeah, it really gets heavy. But then we talk a
bit about the formal training, but also at the end
of it, many of your classmates, the idea was you
would go on and you would be a professor, you
would teach music, but you chose another direction. That is,
you got interested in fusion and jazz and pop, and
you went a different route from others. So talk a
(15:24):
little bit about your formal education decision to go the
way you did in music.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Yeah, the decision, I'm not even sure if that's a decision,
just just like you are saying, well, that's gout's provisioned,
you know, whatever whatever you would call it. But yes,
I have formal education, you know, I've graduated from Saint
Petersburg Conservatory, so I have We don't have this PhD
and masters and stuff like that. Now probably do, but
(15:53):
back then, so my degree was between PhD and master's degree.
So the program is five years and for six years,
and I got my piano playing degree is a performer,
but our degree was it was a triple degree. So
I graduated as a concert performer, piano player, as a teacher,
(16:17):
and as an accompanist. So I had these three things,
three degrees, and obviously studied all of them. So the
formal training was brutal, and yeah, brutal, gruesome, I can
come up with some other words. But it was very,
(16:41):
very tough. But when you when you don't know how
to play or something is not happening, so it's a torture.
But when you gain certain degree of freedom, then it's
a blessing. You still have to work really hard, you know,
or to memorize the music and work on it so
you you and it was difficult, uh, and we had
(17:04):
some other things to do. It's not just piano playing.
History of music, you know, early music, medieval music, and
you know, you just name it history of music and
soulfage and and on harmony and polyphonics and orchestration and
everything else. So that was. That's how it was.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
What did you played other songs? Share a little bit
about what you're going to play next, and let's hear another.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Song, another song. I have some songs.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Got your list down?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I know the quest list question. I don't have a setlist.
I actually always make a set list and I put
it right over here and I never look at it,
just play whatever. But yeah, well you asked me how
I ended up doing what I am doing. So playing
jazz was not or pop as well. Was frowned upon
(18:00):
conservatory and there was a reason for it. Not because
they were so backwards, you know, Lloyd's a bad music. No,
but no one said that, by the way, but they
were saying time, which you dedicate to playing jazz and pop,
you're not spending learning classical thing. And it's a absolutely
different way of playing. I remember that I really like jazz,
(18:24):
but I learned, really learned how to play it when
I saw on TV, which was a very rare occasion,
by the way, a double you know, it was a snippet,
you know, twenty minutes maybe out of concert from Prague.
I think it was it was Count Basie, then Oscar Peterson,
a dueling pianist and just seeing how they are doing it.
(18:45):
That's like light bulb just went on. Ah, Now I
understand what's going on because in jazz a lot of
it is attitude. It's not just playing right notes at
the right time. It's an attitude. If you don't half
his attitude, that it's not going to sound good.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Really.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
So anyhow, when I decided that I want to do
it anyway, and I had some heated discussions with my
professors about that, but I, you know, maybe I'm stubborn.
I don't know. So I was doing jazz, I was
learning how to do that, how to orchestrate jazz and
fusion and even rock and just all of it is
(19:29):
kind of it comes from your ear. You have to
listen to it. In classical music, unfortunately, I have to
say a lot of it comes from notes. Here the notes,
here's the music right up front of you, and you
just kind of figure it out and you just follow
the music. So I always felt like, there's my freedom
is limited, you know in that. Now I understand that
(19:50):
it's just it's not as simple as that. But the
main appeal in jazz and pub was this incredible freedom
of expression. So I started doing that, and I had
my own band and we were recording, and we were
doing a lot of soundtracks, and so it was kind
of I made a name for myself as an orchestrator
(20:11):
in Saint Petersburg and as a jazz player. But when
I came over here, you know, now, I discovered a
lot of things which I was totally unaware of in
the world of jazz and pop, and met a lot
of great musicians still playing with them, like Daryl Sturmer,
(20:33):
which was like a school in itself pretty much. But
I love doing it. I think it's it's great. I'll
play for you something you know, not classical at all.
I'll play for you. This popular song from the movie
(20:54):
movie soundtrack almost didn't make it to the movie because
director didn't like it. He was saying, no, that's just
it's so sappy whatever, No, it's not a good idea.
And our lead actress, she's too small to sink this
stuff anyway, she's too young to sing this stuff. No,
he didn't like the song. Somebody, I'm glad that whoever
(21:15):
this person was, took him into actually having this song.
He said, no, no, come on, you just give her
a chance. Let her sing, you know, and it's a
good song. And now it's the best song ever of
soundtrack that it's considered to be the best soundtrack song ever. Okay,
well I'll play it for you. There's a mike connection as.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Well as a thing. After I get the mating.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Anything a.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Thing, the thing, expect the.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Lead.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Now there's a turning point in your story. November nineteen
eighty nine, October.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
October October, I think it was October twenty first.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Ah, what happened that brings you to Milwaukee?
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Oh, well, that's another couple hours, you know, we have
two minutes two minutes. Well, yeah, I was accompanying a
mural from Saint Petersburg, Russia to Milwaukee. There's a teacher
in the Milwaukee area. He's from Heartland, Joel Fifer. His
(26:39):
name is. He's an art teacher. He taught at Arrowhead
High School and my friend was friends with him. So
that's how I was introduced to him in Saint Petersburg
and he asked me if I would get involved with
this project creating a mural. It's an some Milwaukee mural
(27:02):
which was created by people of Milwaukee, not professional artists,
but people was brought to Saint Petersburg, and people in
Saint Petersburg created a mural which was brought to Milwaukee.
Now it's at the airport by the way, Milwaukee Airport
on the wall. There's even my signature there. How glamorous.
(27:25):
So anyhow, I was involved in creating this mural, and
when it came to transportation, you know, I didn't have
no idea how I ended up being responsible for that.
I don't know. If somebody tricked me into it, I
don't know. But you know, here I am negotiating talking
(27:46):
to a person in a Baltic shipping company because somebody
from airflot which was the largest airplane and air company
the airline in the world, suggested that I would talk
to them, and he said, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I will
bring this mural no problem. And I said, okay, Well,
(28:08):
the biggest question is how much it's going to cost? Right,
how much money is going to cost? And said, oh,
don't worry about it, will just sponsor it. Like wow,
I said, well, how about like, how can we pack it?
Can you give a suggestion? Said, oh, don't worry about it,
we'll just pack it as well, And well, how much
is that, I said, oh yeah, I told you, We'll
(28:29):
just sponsor all of that. So we ended up shipping
this mural two Milwaukee for no cost because the shipping
Botting shipping company decided to sponsor this project, which was great,
and I was so happy. I was leaving his office
and by the way, he was like a foulest mouth
I've ever encountered, Like, out of one hundred words he uttered,
(28:53):
maybe ten were okay, but you know the rest of
them were But you know, I understood what he's saying.
I guess. So he was a very rough individual. I'm
not even sure if he is a life or somebody
took him out because of his bad mouth. But anyhow,
when I was leaving his office, he said, hey, do
(29:14):
you want to be on this ship? I said, what
do you mean? I said, well, I mean we have
like six beds on the ship free right now, because
we usually have these guys who paint, the painters who
paint like pat shop paint on a ship, and they're
(29:35):
not coming this time. So we have these six beds available,
bunk beds. Obviously, I'm like, of course I would love to.
He said, okay, consider it done. When are we leaving
you know, like in three weeks. Okay, so I have
to get my visa. In all of that, I had
a top to make a long story, very long story,
(29:56):
very short, or as short as I can. You know.
I ended up on the ship and we came right
to Milwaukee because when I talked to him, I said, yeah,
but okay, we're coming like Boston and New York or
New Orleans, and how about transporting it to Milwaukee? Said oh, no,
we'll come. We'll bring you right to Milwaukee. I said,
(30:17):
how it's right in the middle of the continent. I said, oh,
there's a system of Locke, Saint Lawrence seaway, You'll be fine.
So I ended up on the ship. I was so excited,
and I came over here. By the way, I did
know that I have a sea like what is it?
What is it called sea sickness? Right, I had no
(30:38):
idea that I have one, so right, and when we
on the top like in the North Sea, we came
out of Baltic Sea, ended up in the North Sea.
It's like, oh my god, how I deal with that?
You know? But I survived and it was a lot
of fun, nevertheless, And we came to Milwaukee, and I
played an unveiling of this mural in Milwaukee Art Museum,
(30:59):
the old one old building, and there were some people
from recording company. It was the biggest new age recording
company in the world at the time, called Norada Records.
And some people still have cassettes and CDs in LPs.
You know, so, John, those are time talking but yes, exactly,
(31:22):
so anyhow, that's they came to me cold Actually a
person I was saying with and said, hey, we would
like to sign the recording contract with this guy. But
the Russian guy, Well, the problem is I didn't didn't
speak any English none, So I'm like, okay, I have
(31:42):
no idea. I mean, well we figured it out obviously,
but figuring out the language that was something else. I
knew two words and one expression. That's how I figured
out the rest of the language. You just have to
have like a couple of words one expression. Words were yes,
well that's good, no a very useful word, and one
(32:05):
expression thank you very much. And I remember that the
person I was who I was staying with. His name
is Jim Olsmith, great guitarist by the way, and a
wonderful journalist. So he was very patient with me and
I really appreciate it, especially now. He asked me, are
(32:25):
you hungry? And I'm like, okay, here it comes. You know,
I have no idea what he's saying, but I have
a choice to say yes, thank you very much or no,
thank you very much. And I thought, if I'll say no,
thank you very much, I never will figure out what
he's saying. But if I'll say yes, thank you very much,
then probably something will come out of it. Sure enough,
(32:47):
he brought me a big meal. I'm like, aha, one
more word, hungry, hungry me hungry. So anyhow, that was
an interesting and now before you know it, you know,
I started kind of talking people forgave all my horrible
(33:07):
mistakes I made and the mispronunciation of some words, which
was pretty embarrassing in some instances, but I won't go
into that. But anyhow, that's so I ended the top
over here, you know, and getting involved in musical community.
(33:28):
Somebody introduced me to Darryls Turmer right around this, probably
a couple of weeks after I met El Williams at
the studio one week after I arrived, because Norada Records
brought me to the studio and Elle was working at
AD Productions Mike Hansi's studio. So I met Elle thirty
(33:51):
six years ago. That's a long time. So anyhow I
end the top, I'm meeting darryl' sturmer and at this
pretty cool point, I already figured out a couple more awards.
So I told him I like Genesis. It's Darely saying, well,
(34:12):
he was sucking up to me from the get go,
but he always tells this story and I always roll
my eyes, but you know it's true. It's very true.
That's what I said. And before you know it, maybe
within six months, Darryl actually asked me if I would
play with him and his band, and I started playing
(34:34):
with him his band. So it's been thirty five years
already with Daryl, and well here I am, here I
am yeah, thirty six years later. Yeah, thank you, thank you,
thank you, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Do you want to share something that you did with Nurata.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Norada? Yes, Norada and they are.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Whatever you want to play Bluette?
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah sure, Well actually you know it's a good segue.
It's not on my list, but I'll play it anyway.
That's the actually Norada. What actually Narada asked me to do.
They said Okay, we really want to sign a recording
contact with you, but we have to go through certain procedures.
You have to uh record a demo. So I recorded
(35:30):
a demo and a cassette. And the person who really
helped me, his name is Micro Dysovich. He's the are
you familiar with the Serbian restaurant called old Town Old
Town Restaurant All Town Restaurant by was owned by a
very good friend of mine, late friend of mine, unfortunately,
(35:51):
Alex ro Dysovitch, and he had a couple of kids,
well three actually, and one of them is Micro Dysovitch,
wonderful musician. And so Jim Olschmidt, who I was staying with,
he knew Mike and asked Mike to help me to
record a demo. And the song I'm going to play
(36:12):
for you that was on this demo, and then later
on I recorded it for my album Sweet Saint Petersburg.
It's called Secret Garden.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
In the commun It's one of my favorites.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Thank you so much. We're starting to wind down a
little bit, so I've got another question for you. You've
you've performed with legends, you've worked on huge stages, but
yet you find you're also in this intimate setting of
(41:50):
your church every.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Week, every week, every Sunday.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
Yeah, Doc, you'll share a bit about that experience and
your faith and what how this kind of thing you
treasure and what it means to you, this intimate kind
of place to perform and be a part of music.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
In well, in my opinion, that's actually the best place
to perform because it's all it's all meaningful. That's a
very good question. Big stage is fine. I like big stages,
(42:33):
but playing like there's a reason why back is my
favorite composer. Buck spent his entire life in the church
playing church music. Well, I grew up in a very
spiritual family. I can't say that we were church goers.
(42:53):
And Russian Orthodox church is very structured, in very strict
as well. There are some beautiful things about it I
really love and cherish, but you know, because it's so strict,
you just go to the church and there's always someone says,
(43:16):
oh you can stand over here, okay, Oh you can't
have your hand right behind your back, you know, okay?
And you whoever like women, for example, they have to
cover their hands with scarf and if you don't, then
somebody is going to tell you that you are like,
(43:36):
it's a blasphemy and know all this stuff. I don't
want to say anything bad about it, but but I
always had this apprehension towards clergy. I have to say that.
That's when Common told me, I think you will love
this guy, the pastor at the church. I'm like, oh no, yeah,
(44:01):
well I was. It was a big surprise because that's
not what I expected, obviously, But that's what I like
about this church, that it's not what you expect. It's
something actually so meaningful. And by the way, I love
our church and I love all of you. Thank you
so much. I can't tell you how thank you, thank you.
(44:25):
I can't tell you, thank you, how honored I am
to be here with you every Sunday and play for
you and praise God with you, and to be with
you today. When Lannie told me about this event, I'm like,
will come. Who needs to hear my stories? I mean,
(44:50):
Lannie knows all my stories because we get together and
I'll tell him all these stories. Then you know, he
probably feels like, Okay, I got to stop him somehow.
Oh gosh, here's Scotch. How about that. Okay, that's good,
that's good. But I feel honored and privileged that you
came to hear all my talking and playing. Thank you
(45:13):
so much. I appreciate that. And just to answer your
question about the church and the faith, I have a
friend who in the top. He developed a schizophrenia and
the top in medical facility for a long time. I
met him on the street. I think I told his
(45:34):
story and so it's a torture obviously. And when I
talked to him, he said, you know, I figured out
one thing that when everything makes sense but has no meaning,
that's where the hell is. And everything makes sense, but
it doesn't really matter at all. You are totally indifferent
(45:55):
to it and it has no meaning, no higher meaning
for you. And I think that without actually having this
meaning in your life, life is I'm not even sure
worth living, you know. And that's that's where the hell starts.
Like oh do I even should continue that or not?
But what our community, because it's a community. It's not
(46:18):
just a building, obviously, it's a beautiful building, but it's
all of you, and it's all of us which give
a meaning to what we what we do for each other, obviously.
And I think I always had this feeling because for me,
everything is feeling. It's not just words, though I can
(46:40):
talk forever, but I think music is a pure feeling.
Being connected with God is a feeling because there's no
explanation to it of any kind. To me, there are
only two proofs that God exists. It's love, which is
(47:05):
absolutely I mean, nothing would exist without it, even in
a liturgical sense of it. If God would not love
the world, it would not create it, right, And that's
how I feel love and art. Art is absolutely useless.
(47:29):
It is no purpose, right except for praising whatever you see.
Same with love. You know, without love and love, then
if you love something, you will do all the sacrifices.
If you don't, you will be thinking what can I
get out of it? No, that's not how faith works, right,
(47:52):
like you were talking about it today, you know, well
you talk about it every Sunday. And I think for me,
it's it's like discovering my center. That's what Carmen broke
me to the church. I started coming over here and playing.
That's when I when, That's exactly when I found my
I don't know a begbone if you will of my life.
(48:14):
So I want to thank you all of you for them.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
By thank you by the way, he's got one more song,
one more song, but there's I'd like just to say
for you to be aware of Donny Kate Wilson.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Where are you?
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Raise your hands?
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Where are you?
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Are you still in the room. They they were the underwriters,
a sponsor of this event, the meal. We thank you,
thank you so much. We we knew this would be good.
But if we could feed you a little bit, that
would be well. And thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Just so you're aware.
Speaker 4 (48:48):
Uh, there's there's a table out back there and there's
a few recordings of Coastia. They're not for sale. Okay,
there's an Essential coast You and then this album here
Still Still Still this. Uh, it's another story when Colsi
shares about how he was introduced to Christmas music.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
A couple hours three hours.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
Yeah, and he's gonna be playing more of still Still
Still as we enter into advent and Christmas. Where you
have his style to those hymns that we're familiar with. Uh,
Ted and Ray clemb they were the underwriters. They produced
this CD. They realized that we need to we need
to record this and so it still lives on after
all these years. And thank you Ted and Renee we
(49:32):
just want to thank you. So there's a table back
there and there's some there. I think that's all that
you have left of everything, right, yes, okay, so if
you want to take one, you can take one. But
if you want to be generous, I'm gonna embarrass him
he does it. I'm going to do this if you
want to. There's a tip jar. People used to tip
(49:53):
jars when they gig. Wouldn't it be marvelous that if
he had a good tip? I mean he's not gigging
for a few weeks. So it was Carmen's wearing with
Willie Porter that gone it. I know, oh my, But
if you'd just like to give a token, because because
he's not he has a place to live, but we
we don't. You know, his cash is when he plays,
(50:15):
and so anything we can do that that that supports Coastya,
we want to do that. So take a CD, be generous.
There's also a vemo if you want to do an
online event as well, and so play your last song
for us and anything you want to say and thank
you all for coming and being a part of this
great event.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
And da
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