Doo Bop Sound
The name of this Russian group, founded already in 1997 by saxophonist Alexej Popov and trumpeter Igor Shilov, derives from the composition “Doo Bop Song” of the great jazz innovator Miles Davis. The main subject of the band is to refresh the sound of Miles Davis’ own compositions and jazz standards. DOO BOP SOUND are playing Funk- and groove-orientated jazz. In their 11 years of performing on stage they present their concept on various festivals in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany. Four CD releases are documenting the art of DOO BOP SOUND. In over 500 concerts in clubs and on festivals in Russia and in the GUS countries the band showed their musical vision. In Petersburg they called the “Kings of Acid-Jazz”.
The Norwegian newspaper “Finnmarken” resumed:
“Doo Bop Sound is the best art coming from St. Petersburg since Dostojewsky.”
Doo Bop Sound played at:
1999
"Slavyansky Bazar" (Belorussia)
2000
"Arctic Jazz" (Murmansk,Russia); "Festspillene" (Harstad, Norway); "VarangerFestival" (Vadso,Norway); "Kallott Jazzfestival" (Haparanda-Tornio,Sweden-Finland); "Baltic Jazz" (Flensburg, Germany); "Yalta Jazz Festival" (Yalta,Ukraine);
2001
"Kallott Jazz" (Tornio-Haparanda,Finland - Sweden); "Kassel Jazz Festival" (Kassel, Germany);
“Bryansk Jazz festival" (Bryansk, Russia); "Nu Jazz" (St Petersburg, Russia)
2002
"Jazz Triumph" (Moscow, Russia); "Izhevsk Jazz Festival" (Izhevsk, Russia); "Karelian Jazz" (Petrozavodsk, Russia); "Jazz on Volga" (Yaroslavl, Russia)
2003
"Varanger Jazz festival" (Vadso, Norway); "Minsk Jazz" (Minsk, Belorussia); "Jazz on Dnepr" (Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine)
2004
"Dodzh festival" (Donetsk, Ukraine); "Jazz Province" (Kursk, Russia); "Baltic Jazz" (St-Petersburg, Russia)
2005
"Jazz spring" (St-Petersburg, Russia);
2006
"White Night Swing"(St-Petersburg, Russia)
2007
"MdM festival" (Moscow, Russia)
Recordings:
1. "Live& Funky vol.1" - 1998 (promo cd)
2. "Acid Man" - 2000
3. "Live & funky vol.2" - 2003
4. "Live in Moscow" - 2004
5. "Tribute to Miles" - 2007
Alexej Popov – Saxophonist & Leader, Composer
Popov studied at the Mussorgsky Music School (1993) and at the Culture & Art University (2003). Today he teaches saxophone at the University. He performed with Wynton Marsalis, Mark Whitfield, Ronnie Barrash and the best Russian musicians. His musical language is universal; he is taking part in various projects from Sympho-Jazz to Rock music. Beside these activities and his leadership in the group DOO BOP SOUND he runs his other band FOUR & MORE.
Igor Shilov – Trumpet
Igor completed the Technology University. He is playing jazz since the 80ties. His music is strongly influenced by the music of Miles Davis and Chet Baker, which marked and distinguished him from other trumpeters. He is one of the founders of DOO BOP SOUND and also leader of his own band SOLAR PROJECT.
Alexej Nikonov – Keyboards
Studied at the Mussorgsky Music School. Since 1993 he is working with Alexej Popov in diverse groups. He was the co-founder of DOO BOP SOUND. Many own compositions he wrote for the band.
Boris Mazhorov – Bass Guitar
One of the most powerful and reliable musicians in Russia. Boris has studied at the Mussorgsky Music School (1994). He is the oldest member of the band and involved in other session projects.
Nikolaj Grusdev – Guitar
One of the most stable and rhythmic guitarist in St. Petersburg. He is member in various stylistic projects. With DOO BOP SOUND he is performing since 2006.
Peter Micheev – Drums
Young talented musician. Since 2006 he is responsible for the rhythmic sound in the band. Because of his profession and his musical feeling he is working in several jazz and rock groups of St. Petersburg. Peter had shown his gifts and his abilities as a reliable partner and great musician again and again.
Alexej Popov in an interview with the Russian magazine SOBAKA.RU
published at the beginning of DOO BOP SOUNDs international career in 2005:
Alexej, your project is generally known meanwhile. Are you planning to perform in front of Western audiences and publish albums, giving more concerts here?
Doo Bop Sound is a group for Funk- and Acid-Jazz fans and such music is mostly non-commercial, it is for our minds and our souls, no producer is standing behind. This music is well-enquired by festivals and jazz clubs. In London jazz is very hip and is published on several labels, equally in other European countries and the US. For instance Moscow jazz-rock bands like Funky Land, Funk You, Trans-Atlantik, Sunlight, Sound Cake – what they are doing? Either there are club gigs or appearances at festivals, that is the only possibility in this country. The release of a new album is great if a label show his interest to record, every band likes to record in London for instance…about gigs there, only if you have contacts to Western managers. We experienced this in 2000: a Norwegian manager listened to our music and immediately organized a complete tour for us. We would like to record on ACID JAZZ RECORDS or another Label. If we could invest some money, we will invite saxophonist Courtney Pine for a solo or Maysa Leak, the front singer of Incognito. Our manager is Wladimir Feiertag, because of his great work we performed on lots of festivals in Russia, in the Ukraine, Belo-Russia and Germany.
Recently new instruments came into the band, for instance keyboards…
Properly a musician of 30 years knows what he need, he would buy nothing without a cause to experiment. I know what I buy and thought about it before. Our new instrument is to bring up more Acid effects into our modern music. The new instrument is played by myself and also a vocoder came to use as a little addition.
You are performing a long time since you are on stage the first time. What is your opinion about the show business, what is going on at present?
There is a movement at present, I guess. In Moscow some venues are very flexible moving forward, in Piter (St. Petersburg) the things are going on more slowly, but you can see also some changes in clubs like “Diesis” or “Jam-Point”. Since 10 years the open stage JFC exist, a jazz stage, where you can experiment your new ideas. Particularly I will name the owners of the clubs Jet-Set and Tink-Off, because they hire world-known musicians to bring them the first time to Russia. In Moscow you have lots of possibilities to perform, but you have to bring in very good contacts if you are from Piter. We performed in Moscow and are known there: two times we played in the Tschaikowsky Hall, at the jazz spot Le Club (thanks to Igor Butman, who regularly bring us to this club). In Petersburg life is more slowly and calm. Naturally we want to play live on stage at least seven times a month.
What are you doing if the strings getting broken on stage or the instruments failing?
This happened to us some time, once the electricity failed, then we only had a saxophone and drums. We usually have some Plan B, than we play solo for instance to trick out the problem…nothing is bad about it, everybody understands what is going on and the audience is thankful and well prepared.
What is the main idea behind DOO BOP SOUND?
We have a lot of ideas, but our main focus is to follow the stylistics of Miles Davis latest work (Miles last record called Doo Bop, released 1991). Our keyboarder und myself write different music, but it sounds always a la Davis, mainly because of the trumpet play of Igor Shilov.
You began to recover Miles Davis compositions. What are you doing now? Are you have other musical role models?
The name of our band doesn’t mean, that we only play Miles Davis standards. You can use his style, he even played standards from other musicians. Important is the sound, which function with the same attitude. In the eight years after we found DOO BOP SOUND we recorded four albums, who documented mainly our own compositions. Above this we worked with composed material from Ellington, Parker and Desmond. At present we are working on pieces from Thelonious Monk, one of the most interesting jazz composers, who perfectly fits with Acid-Jazz. Next year we like to record eight new compositions, three of them are already placed: DOO BOP SOUND Plays Thelonious Monk. This should have been a concept record.
