TRIO ROMEN feat. VALENTINA PONOMAREVA (full album)

Hot Club Records proudly presents: TRIO ROMEN

Valentina PONOMAREVA (vocal), complete USSR recordings (1973-1979) - the birth of contemporary gypsy music.

Valentina Ponomareva is one of the best known Russian singers today. Her vocal range is legendary, and there’s seemingly nothing she can’t do with her voice. She covers every possible genre: from singing with big-bands and music halls to classical Russian romances and contemporary music, and her records have sold several hundred thousand during her five decades on the stage. However, it is in the free jazz she has conquered the world.

She made her jazz debut as early as in 1967, when she became the soloist of the Jazz Big-band conducted by Anatoly Kroll, but it was not until her teaming up with Vladimir Chekasin and Sergey Kuryokhin in 1980 that she became a full blooded jazz artist. It was obvious that her destiny was not in the traditional, but on the contrary, the most experimental and free jazz. The rest is history, and after meeting Konstantin Gogunskiy in 1983 she had the perfect sound engineer and producer, who eventually also became her manager, guitarist, and husband.
Her international breakthrough came with Fortune-Teller (1985), sophisticated, but also scaringly raw and experimental, showcasing in full her new and amazing vocal structures. Since then Valentina Ponomareva has been the dark queen of avant garde music.

However, before the jazz took over, Valentina Ponomareva - of gypsy origin - started out in a completely different musical setting. After classical training in song and piano, she joined the legendary Teater Romen in Moscow, the world’s very first gypsy theatre. Here she formed the “Trio vocal & instrumental Romen”, for the posterity simply known as the magnificent Trio Romen.
Trio Romen presented traditional gypsy repertoire from Russia, Hungary and Moldavia, as well as original material, all with a completely fresh approach. The result was a pioneering amalgam of past and present, without doubt one of the greatest gypsy trios, ever.

Nevertheless, due to the cold war, and the iron curtain, the popular recordings of the trio never made the impact in the West it was supposed to. Trio Romen remained one of the best kept secrets from the Soviet era. It is actually not until today the two LPs and one EP, with a total of 27 single tracks (recorded 1973-1978), for the very first time is being presented together on CD. It is with the greatest pride and joy I have the privilege of sharing these treasures with you: the complete recordings of TRIO ROMEN.

Jon Larsen

Originally produced by Melodya (Soviet), re-released on lisence.

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