Igor Khoroshev Talks to Tim Morse
Tim Morse: What inspired you to make a solo album?
Igor Khoroshev: I wanted to contribute to the world the enjoyment I found in different paintings and art through-out the world. And it was my way of imparting my passion and interpreting this work musically, not only what I see visually, but interpret it musically for people to hear. I explored some of the deep feelings I had towards the artists, not only their paintings, but the artists themselves. I was always attached to Kandinsky and Picasso. Those people are always fascinating to me and I wanted to not only write music for the piano, but I wanted to create a concept where people can look at the paintings and listen to my music at the same time, "This is how I feel about this painting." So it is a complete experience.
TM: Why solo piano?
IK: Because it is a very complex instrument and it has dynamics that range from zero to a thousand. And it was interesting to find out my personal relationship with that instrument; it's basically about the symbiotic relationship between a man and the piano. The task itself was very difficult, because you can play multiple keyboards all you want and make it sound great in no time, but to create 50 minutes of music on one instrument and make it dynamically correct and write music just for the piano was an incredible task for me as a composer.
TM: What instrument did you use for this recording?
IK: It was a Bluthner grand piano. It was recorded in my living room. I recorded it straight on to ADAT and as a matter of fact the album was written in Vancouver and then I had to print out sheet music. And after I had printed out the sheet music I just hung in there, because I said, "I won't be able to play it." I really had to practice a lot, just like I would do with any classical piece that I would play and that's exactly what I had to do for me to actually complete all the pieces.
TM: So did you know from the beginning that you wanted to tie the music with the paintings?
IK: No, from the very beginning I looked at the paintings since I graduated from school and got my masters degree in art and music. I was always attracted to art and artists in general, I've always been an artist myself except for when I immigrated to the United States, because artists in this part of the world don't survive! So I had to use the other half of my brain to become a musician so I could actually earn some money and respect and make people proud of me, but art always remains my passion. I still create art and it's coming up on Khoroshev.com, I'll have a page with art that I have created and that is in my gallery and that you can actually look for and that's why I was so attached to that. There was never a question of which artists I would pick, I knew exactly which paintings I liked, paintings I felt strongly about and I just had to write music about them.
TM: How did you write Nocturne 37?
IK: Honest to god I got so drunk, you won't believe how drunk I got in Vancouver. It was so pathetic, it was really pathetic. My friend Paul is my witness, he was in my room. We got back to my room, very late and I just got so sad and I wrote that piece of music. I had 36 pieces that I didn't know what to do with and this was another one I wrote and I said, "I'm going to put on my PIANO WORKS and call it 'Nocturne 37'." And the idea was to make 100 nocturnes and release them on a CD-ROM, like Chopin. Now I'm not pretending to be Chopin, because I'm not. But that nocturne was played from the beginning to the end and that's the way it was and then I just put it on the sheet music and I had to relearn it all so I could play it.
TM: It was completely improvised?
IK: What you hear was completely improvised all six minutes. It's not really tough, technically at all, it's about feel more than anything. It's very subtle; it's a very sensual piece of music.
TM: What about "Self-Portrait"?
IK: That's Picasso's self -portrait.
TM: It's not your self portrait?
IK: In a way it is, I want people to wonder actually. I actually like "The Kiss" the most, it's based on Gustav Klimt. It's one of my favorite paintings by Klimt.
TM: Didn't you say in "Barlegro" that you modulated as many times as you could until you ran out?
IK: What happened was that I really wanted to take it to a point, because he really didn't develop that piece. He wrote it and it's not that long. I had to learn "The Barbarian" for the Emerson Lake and Palmer tribute record. And I said, "Since I spent so much time learning it, I might as well put it on my PIANO WORKS." I only learned a minute and half of the original by Bartok so I thought I'd take it somewhere else. And if you listen to it very carefully you can hear ELP's (sings) Duh -da-do-da and you can hear "Barbarian" comes down (sings) duh-da-da-do-da. So it's basically my interpretation on Bela Bartok's piece. I should have called it "Variations on a Theme."
TM: What about "Blue Rider"?
IK: Bruce Fairbairn gave me organ music, he was driving in his car and he fell in love with it. He came to me and said, "Why don't you write an intro for 'New Language'? It will start very spooky and then you go into this crazy stuff and you do it for two or three minutes and then you go into 'New Language.'" So I sat down in my room and wrote the whole piece based on the music he gave me. But it never made it on the record, because Bruce wanted to put "New Language" as the first song on the album. So he said, "We can't put your three minute intro on the first song of the album."
TM: But then they changed the sequence
IK: Yes, they changed the sequence after he died when it was left up to Jon. So I saved it for my album. I looked at Blue Rider and he's riding through the fields and (sings main theme).
TM: Who are your classical influences?
IK: Number one is Rachmaninoff. You can't put anyone before Rachmaninoff, they're all wonderful and beautiful, you can say Mozart if you're Rick Wakeman , Bartok if you're Jon Anderson, Stravinsky if you're Patrick Moraz. But for me it's Rachmaninoff no matter how you slice it. And then after that I'd probably pick Stravinsky, because he is one of the most significant musicians of our time.
TM: I would have guessed your influences to be from the Romantic era as opposed to the Baroque.
IK: Yes there are some pieces that do reflect that, but it's all modern music. It might start off as a classical piece of music, but then the real me comes out.
TM: How much writing did you contribute to THE LADDER?
IK: I contributed all of myself to this record, just like the rest of the members and a lot of the stuff that was written in Vancouver by individuals like Steve Howe and Jon Anderson and so forth was brought to the table and we all collaborated on the material. It was co-written together, it honestly was. Every piece I brought to the table was changed and every piece anyone else brought I would try to make better and more interesting. And the rest of the band did exactly the same thing with the writing process on this album. But I must say Jon Anderson wrote the lyrics for the whole record and it took him as much time as the songs lasts to write them. He would sit down, literally, and write "Homeworld" in ten minutes and go in and sing it. That amazed me, it completely blew me away. I could never do it. I don't have that and I never will. As far as the music goes everybody was writing and Jon was writing all the melodies I must say, but all the back-up vocals and stuff like that. But all the main melodies were written by Jon Anderson, yet there was a lot of music underneath the melodies that were inspiring him to write melodies, you know?
TM: There is a joyfulness on the new Yes album, it is apparent that you really having a good time.
IK: Absolutely, it was a good time. I can't get into how good of a time we had, but we had a hell of a good time.
TM: I like that Yes is trying different things on this album.IK: There is a "Yes music." There is such a thing, we can all write Yes music. But for that music to be true you have to be Yes, you have to have Steve Howe, you must have Jon Anderson and Chris Squire, Alan White is all the way behind it and Billy with his backup vocals and his contribution as a songwriter...it's unbelievable what this band can do together, you know?
TM: The new album is a real testament to that.
IK: Exactly and I hope people like it, because this is something that I've been waiting for a long time. I didn't want to do a Yes record that is not good enough for Yes listeners to listen to and say, "This is something I'd like to have." I know Yes fans, I'm one of them.
TM: I remember in Vancouver you said that you wouldn't be involved with this album if it was lame, because you thought you'd take the blame as Billy did for OPEN YOUR EYES.
IK: Some people actually like OPEN YOUR EYES and I do like a couple of songs on it, but we didn't have complete participation from the band as far as the writing goes, so therefore you lose even before you release the record, because it becomes obvious. But when you have five great musicians together and you bring Igor into the picture and everybody happens to be a writer and arranger - I can provide them with sounds and songs and ideas. When you have six people working together it's much better than just having one writer write everything.
TM: I think good Yes music has always benefited from that collaborative spirit.
IK: Absolutely, I have to agree with you on that.
TM: On THE LADDER did you use your OX-7 for all of the Hammond sounds?
IK: The majority of it is OX-7, especially the solo in "New Language." Because Bruce Fairbairn didn't want to change one note, I did want to replay it and redo it and I had a much better version of that particular solo that I was rehearsing at home. But when I came back, he said, "No, you've done a great solo, you're not going to replace anything." But there are some overdubs, not significant overdubs, like chord holding things that I did on the B-3 in his studio, but that's about all. None of the solos were done on the B-3.
TM: Almost all the basic tracks you cut were kept?
IK: 99 percent of the basic tracks that I cut when we were recording Alan and Chris were kept. The same happened to Steve Howe. They kept the majority of his stuff, he did do some overdubs I must say, but most of it was kept live.
TM: Is it true that Fairbairn didn't originally want "Homeworld" on the album?
IK: Originally when that song came up he didn't think it was strong enough of a song, because we didn't have a full version as it is now on the record. But then the band got together and we really wanted it in.TM: You saw the potential in it.
IK: Exactly. We got together and moved on with that piece and brought it to the next level. So when Bruce walked in he said, "Oh yeah, well if you change this and change that a little bit around...this just might work." But it used to be called "The Ladder," climbing the ladder, because it was going up and up and never ends. So that's what happened.
TM: That's quite a change from thinking the song wouldn't make that album to making it the opening song on the album.
IK: By the time that song was done, Bruce loved it. Jon put a lot of work in it as well and the band had to bend over backwards to understand his vision. And I would only do it for Jon and Chris and the people who wrote "Close To The Edge" or "Awaken" for that matter. To me their vision was extremely important in a song like "Homeworld" or "New Language" because I have different ideas and I would do it differently, but I had to listen to what they had to say, because I have enormous respect for them as musicians.
TM: And they've been doing it for thirty years.
IK: Exactly. But a lot of it came from me and a lot of it was collaborated with and all my keyboard parts on the record were collaborated between me and Jon Anderson.
TM: How big was Faribairn's influence on the recording?
IK: Oh huge! I don't know about writing, but as far as selecting the songs and producing them, changing things around - telling the band that they should kick into the chorus here and make changes there - he had a great influence in that, as any producer should.
TM: So in the rehearsal stage, did he come and visit you?
IK: Absolutely. He came and visited us. He said, "Don't bother playing that piece, play this piece."
TM: What did you use for the analog synth sounds?
IK: The AN1X Yamaha. I tried to use Moog and maybe I spent a couple of days trying to overlap one of the solos that I already recorded on the Yamaha. I said, "Let me use a real analog synthesizer," and Bruce said, "Okay you go ahead and try it, because I like how analog sounds." And I was trying for maybe two days to find the sound and I ended up keeping what I did with the AN1X live. I wanted to recut my solos and he never let me do it. He said, "If you recut the solos, then you'll have to recut the pad underneath...so just keep it, because it's really great - I like it."
TM: How do you see yourself as a musician?
IK: The most important thing in life for people is being able to express themselves. And really when they have the chance to express themselves they feel so happy and not very many people have the chance to do that. So for musicians it's a one way road, you can express yourself and it's a complete 100 percent satisfaction. It cannot be calculated. You have to be true to yourself and then people will listen to it and then relate to it and there you have it.
Tim Morse is the author of "Yesstories".
His new book is "Classic Rock Stories".
Visit the Yesstories section on NFTE.The entire contents of this interview are
© copyright 2002, Tim Morse
ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDImages © 2002 Robin Kauffman
