The beginning
Jazz arrives in Baku
In the first half of the 20th century Baku was a loud, cosmopolitan oil city open to every wind. Along with records and touring artists, jazz arrived too — and found an eager audience at once.
As early as 1939 the State Jazz Orchestra of Azerbaijan was founded in Baku, led by Tofig Guliyev and Niyazi. So jazz became part of the republic’s musical life.
Timeline
A century of jazz in Baku
1920s–30s
Jazz arrives in Baku with records and tours; in the cosmopolitan city it quickly finds its own audience.
1939
The State Jazz Orchestra of Azerbaijan is founded, led by Tofig Guliyev and Niyazi.
1940s–50s
Despite ideological campaigns against “bourgeois” music, jazz keeps sounding in Baku’s orchestras and on its variety stage.
1960s
The Thaw returns freedom to jazz. Ensembles, jam sessions and young musicians appear — among them Vagif Mustafazadeh.
1970s
Vagif Mustafazadeh creates mugham-jazz — a synthesis of mugham and jazz that becomes the calling card of Azerbaijani music.
1979
Vagif Mustafazadeh dies at 39, leaving behind a school, followers and a new genre.
2000s →
The Baku International Jazz Festival and a new generation of musicians bring Azerbaijani jazz onto the world’s stages.
The Thaw eraThrough the bans
The music they could not ban
In the Soviet years jazz was now suspected as “Western music”, now back on stage. In Baku it survived thanks to orchestras, the variety stage and the audience’s stubborn love.
It was this continuity that prepared the breakthrough: when the freedom of the 1960s came, the city already had musicians ready to raise the jazz banner.
“Baku has always been a city where different kinds of music sit down at one table.”jnews.az