NELLI REES

Candid Recording(s):

Biography:

Nelli was born near the Kremlin, in the centre of Moscow, the daughter of an engineer father and a seamstress mother. Nelli grew up during the final years of the Soviet Union, and though these were tough years for Russia, Nelli remembers her childhood as a time of happiness, "Looking back, I suppose life was hard and difficult, and certainly my parents never had a great deal of money, but I had a happy childhood. I had my music, books, skiing in winter, Pioneer Camps in summer, and lots of good friends. We might not have had a lot but we had enough."

Nelli began her musical education when she was seven. Nelli recalls, ‘I attended classes four times a week. My music lessons took place after school, when, of course my parents were working, so I had to travel to classes by myself. To attend the lessons my journey involved a 45 minute ride on two buses. It’s impossible to imagine a seven year-old being expected to make those sort of journeys by themselves today, but in Russia no one gave it a second thought.’ Nelli studied piano, and sang in a choir, as well as participating in the musical events and concerts that were an integral part of Russian education. ‘The Russian educational system at that time was excellent and the arts were an important element in that education. Every Russian child grew up knowing and loving the poetry and writing of Pushkin, Lermontov, Tutchev, Nekrassov and other great Russian authors. I was delighted to include excerpts of one of my favourite Lermontov poems in my rendition of Bill Wither’s ‘Use Me’ on the ‘Jazz Noir’ album.’

As she entered her teens, Nelli had ambitions to become a concert pianist but it soon became apparent that to realise these ambitions Nelli would have to overcome insurmountable obstacles. Nelli’s family had no ‘blat’ in Russia’s musical world. Blat is Russian slang for ‘connections’ or ‘influence’, vital in Soviet Russia if a person was to enter and succeed in an artistic field. And the lack of blat meant that no matter how talented an individual was, the possibility of success was diminished. ‘Mine was a working-class family, who made great sacrifices to pay for my music classes. But as the time neared for me to choose a career everyone agreed that without blat the barriers I would face in pursuing a musical career were just too enormous. I had the talent but not the connections.’

And then the Beatles made a belated emergence in Russia. Banned for so long by the Communist government, when the music of the Beatles at last became publicly available in the late 80’s the impact on a teenage Nelli was electrifying – she was entranced (favourite songs: ‘Hey Jude’, ‘Oh! Darling’ and ‘Let It Be’). Thoughts of a career as a pianist were put aside as she decided to study English (to understand what her heroes were singing about!), enrolling in Moscow’s premier language college – the Maurice Torez Institute for Foreign Languages. Nelli graduated with her degree in English and French.

Still, young and armed with a degree, Nelli enthusiastically embraced these changes, joining a Canadian company that was one of the first foreign companies to set up in the rapidly liberalising Russia. And it was whilst working there that she met her English husband. Now began a frantic period in Nelli’s life: working with her husband she travelled throughout Russia becoming involved with different business projects as newly resurgent Russian businesses sought to modernise and internationalise. ‘It was a mad, exciting time. We were working 7 days a week, long into the night. We established the first international satellite communication telephone network in Russia (I remember standing on the roof of the LADA car factory in Togliatti, with the temperature registering minus 40 degrees C, helping to erect the first foreign-built satellite dish to come to Russia), distributed tachographs to Russian haulage firms desperate to make their trucks legal for operation in the EC (the most difficult job of interpretation I’ve ever had: translating the Scottish of the training engineer first into English and then into Russian!!) But although it was a strange period in Nelli’s life she has fond memories of it ‘We lived and worked through one of the most dynamic and challenging times of Russian history. We endured attempted coups, the breakdown of law and order, and watched as the complete mindset of a nation was wrenched through 180 degrees. They were exciting, marvellous, terrible, exhilarating, frightening years. And I wouldn’t have missed one single day of it.’

But finally in 1998, she and her husband moved to the UK. ‘It was a difficult decision leaving the country of my birth and coming to England. We were enormously happy in Russia but although, to paraphrase a Chinese saying, it’s great to live in interesting times maybe we were finding that on occasion Russia was getting a little too interesting!!’ Now with two baby daughters, Nelli and her husband set up home in Yorkshire. And there for the first time Nelli was properly introduced to jazz. Her hometown in England has a lively jazz scene and Nelli was soon a regular attendee at the local Jazz Club. Immediately Nelli was struck by the similarity of jazz singing to the singing of Russian Romance songs - both look to the emotional heart of a song for their inspiration. Her love of music rekindled, Nelli was hooked. She determined to sing jazz. She and her husband opened a jazz-themed restaurant – Marmalade’s - and the opportunity to sing for real was irresistible. Nelli delved into the jazz archives, listened and learnt and rehearsed diligently. Looking back at that time Nelli says: ‘It was great hearing for the very first time all those wonderful singers; it was almost too rich a diet. But some performances made indelible impressions; Billie Holiday’s evocative ‘Don’t Explain’, Cassandra Wilson’s astounding take on ‘Strange Fruit’, the amazing timing and pathos of Anita O’Day’s ‘Angel Eyes’ and, the sparse, plaintive feel of Chet Baker’s ‘My Funny Valentine’. Amazing performances by amazing singers.’ Nelli put together a jazz quartet that worked regularly in Marmalade’s. Marmalade’s opened in September 1999, and from the opening Nelli was the resident singer working several times each week with some of the most accomplished jazz musicians in the North East.

In a little over two and a half years Nelli gained a lot of musical mileage, but soon Nelli came to realise that she would never be nor would ever want to be a conventional jazz vocalist singing conventional jazz standards. ‘There seemed to be such a division between the genres of music, anything electric or danceable was seen as non-jazz by the jazz audiences, whilst acoustic jazz was deemed ‘boring’ by non-jazzers. Doing standards as most jazz singers and jazz musicians do, it’s a narrow line between interpretation and imitation. I know because I’ve been there and done it. A lot of jazz performance borders on ‘tribute’ and that’s almost pastiche – recreating in preference to creating. There was a wonderful quote of Joachim-Ernst Berendt referenced in a recent edition of ‘Jazzwise’ which went ‘Whoever does not integrate tradition, but merely adheres to it, betrays it’. I like that. The music I’m doing today may not be jazz as jazzophiles perceive jazz but at least it’s alive and kicking. I’m not into musical necrophilia!’ Nelli wanted to sing jazz in a way that had a relevance to her: not only did she want to work with original material but Nelli wanted to perform music that both she and her audience could move to. Nelli loves dancing and she wanted her jazz to be what jazz once was - dance music. So Nelli and the band set about merging jazz with modern dance elements – techno, drum‘n’bass, garage and even, on occasions, rap. The result is the melding of original jazz-tinged songs (written by Nelli, and various members of her band) and selected jazz standards with the dance rhythms of today. Nelli began working with the production duo ‘Bob Smith’ (the nom de musique of drummer Paul Smith and guitarist Bob Bradley) who were responsible for mixing and producing the majority of the songs on her debut CD. It was Bob Smith that introduced her to the music of Portishead, Tricky, Lamb and others who, unbeknownst to Nelli, had been working along similar lines during the 1990’s. Nelli’s music though, coming as it does from jazz rather than a dance base, emphasises the jazz elements. Nelli insisted that the work of such people as Erik Truffaz, of Bumcello, of the late, great Miles Davis were referenced in her music. And the result? Music that is more trip-bop than trip-hop. The collaboration between Nelli and Bob Smith has been extremely productive and is the music you hear on ‘Jazz Noir’ - it’s smart, sassy, jazzy music that can be danced to as well as listened to. It’s jazz that has a resonance outside the traditional jazz audience. It’s jazz to have fun to (‘jazz’ and ‘fun’ now there’s an unusual juxtaposition). Sure the subject matter of the songs can be a little dark (the noirish element) but you can move to it. ‘We’ve been careful to ensure that though the music is disciplined and tight - modern dance effects demand this - that there is enough space and latitude available to let the band improvise within and around the framework of the songs. Every performance of every song is unique. This is the Music of Surprise not the Music of Machines.’