Valentina celebrates her 30th year on the jazz scene, if you consider her jamming with the greats at the legendary 14th Tallinn Jazz festival in the presence of Charles Lloyd, Jan Johansson and Zbignew Namyslowski. The singer from the Russian Far East was not on the bill. Neither was she featured in official program, nor was she in the double album with the live recordings of the Tallinn Festival. She came on her own just to be there and that meant that her recording debut was postponed for more than... 20 years. 1967 was the last year of anti-stalinist thaw in the USSR. Soviet tanks would attack the Czekoslovak capital a year later, but the Estonians with their jazz were the first to feel the breath of the next wave of cold war. The Tallinn Festival was been reborn with the first year of independent Estonia in 1990. Anyway Ponomareva made it in Tallinn - she got an invitation from Anatoly Kroll, who had the best big band at the time in the Soviet Union, in the small town of Tula. The legendary band was featured with the best musicians and was really the national combined team of the USSR. The recommendation - "one played with Kroll" was the highest sign of quality - the same as for classical musicians "the practical course with Karoyan". Of course, Ponomareva had to emulate Ella Fitzgerald - the only jazz singer who could attract a substantial Russian audience back in the 60s. But she paid her dues with the Kroll band, toured a lot and established proper professional contacts.
Ponomareva appeared in Moscow in 1969 - the first and the last year of the jazz club "Pechora" situated in the fashionable New Arbat district. Again she sang three-four numbers at a local jam-session, but everybody present still can recall a kind of electric circuit while she was doing "Watermelon man". Her Gypsy black hair and dark skin looked darker since she was in a snow-white dress. Immediately a question was posed, if this mysterious young woman is of black origin? A very famous Soviet scholar of African culture (who incidentally was of African descendants herself) even delivered a kind of scientific theory. According it some of the nomadic gypsies on their way to Europe had actually found their way to Africa.
The times were hard for jazz, idealistic Ponomareva got no serious offers, and, finally, she found herself at the Romen theatre - the one and only gypsy enterprises of the kind in Europe. The theatre let Ponomareva and two guys do their own routine - Russian Gypsy "lied" and song slightly modernized in the "Peter, Paul and Mary" folk vein. This time Ponomareva was forced to emulate Mary Travers or Joan Baez, with no respect to her favorite Janis Joplin. Somehow or other, but the
Romen trio records climbed directly to the top of official Soviet pop charts and no TV programs had success without the Romen trio on the national TV channels more then ten years. The Trio got a lot of offers from foreign "entrepreneurs" and performed in all countries in Europe and in Metropolitan-opera in New York.
Disguised as a Russian folk singer Ponomareva went solo, rather successfully, since she was invited to sing for the soundtrack for a Soviet blockbuster
"The Cruel Romance" - the Best national motion picture of the year (1984). More then two millions records was sold out released by Melodia record company with her singing for this soundtrack. And soon she became number one in that special Russian traditional genre called 'romance'. The Russians still fill any capacity when her concert is announced.
This is one line of her fate.The other one actually starts at the beginning of 1980s. Nothing happened under the name of jazz at the time, only commercially purified forms of mainstream jazz become the part of the Soviet cultural establishment (the Official Cultural monopolists were square enough to send a jazz-rock or a piano-bar trio to numerous avant-garde festival who demanded the Russian avant-gardists, that is the Ganelin trio with Vladimir Chekasin on saxophones. Then the Leningrad critic Efim Barban (he and this author were instrumental in turning the singer to 20th century new music) put Ponomareva in touch with Chekasin who was featuring the late pianist and conceptual artist
Sergey Kuryokhin. First time they performed at the Abakan (deep in the heart of the Urals) festival in May 1980. When they finished their performance the audience didn't know how to react - there was no applause at all. "This was my first pain", - recalls Valentina - "I realized that I am stepping into the abyss, nobody knows the end, but I have been falling into it...". Plus postmodernist theatrics, heavily featured by both Chekasin and Kuryokhin, one may add. And theatrics were her forte not only because of the affiliation with the Romance theatre, but because young Ponomareva happened to graduate from a drama college back in the early 60s. Since the Yaroslavl jazz festival (1981) the voice of Ponomareva becomes a trademark of the Soviet avant-garde jazz together with Ganelin trio (AACM-style based, but symphonically constructed long suites) and
Anatoly Vapirov's smooth saxophone. Ponomareva's own skills for imitation whatever one wishes were used instead of electronics which the Soviet music scene lacked at the time. She served as a bridge between live and prerecorded stuff, pure music and instrumental theatre, musical tones and noises. Through Chekasin and Kuryokhin she meets Leningrad underground rock legend
Boris Grebenshchikov and his "Aquarium", and shares all the hardships of being "underground" in the almost world of Orwell's "1984".
In the actual 1984 Valentina was the focal point of two legendary project of aforementioned Sergey Kuryokhin, which was appropriately called
Popular Mechanics. The pinnacle of the Soviet postmodernism in its semi-underground stage, Pop mechanics supplied the legalized by Gorbachev's perestroika artistic scene with the ideas for the nearest 10 years. After the Ganelin trio disbanded in 1986 and Kuryokhin died 10 years later, Russian post-modern free music is far behind West-European variety of styles and genres. Without Ponomareva's voice of the 80s we would have no perspectives for the 90s. and, most probably, could not happen at all.British company Leo Records had already issued what later would be called the first Russian avant-garde jazz LP appropriately called
"The Fortune teller". The singer was named among the most promising discoveries of free music scene of 1985.
Since mid-80s Ponomareva is regularly mentioned alongside Shelly Hersch, Jay Clayton and last but not least Diamanda Galas. Those who care somehow do not realise that Ms. Valentina was starting her carrier when those mentioned above were not even born and that the Russian Gypsy singer had to seek for the things (information, records, sheet music) her Western colleagues took for granted. That is Ponomareva had neither direct teachers, nor indirect ancestors. Luciano Berio and Cathy Berberian's "schizophrenic 'Visage'" was among a few truly new music works whom the Russian singer happened to listen to at the proper time. While working for movie soundtracks Ponomareva met the Russian Mystics as Schnittke, Denosiv and Gubaidulina are now known in the West. Communists tolerated way-out music for movies since film was the main article if the Soviet income budget (save for hard liquor sales) and they let avant-gardists loose, when it concerned film soundtracks, animated movies by Andrei Chrzanowski included. Work in for cinema was not only a regular source of decent wages, but the experience working with the best musicians available. Harmless as they might seem for ideologist, Chrzanowski's cartoons and Gubaidulina music were for Ponomareva the Sound and the Fury of contemporary art and the legal way to experiment in (and with) music as an art form.
No Russian artist at the time had a slightest idea that in America a Renaissance of film music is coming and a young avant-garde sax-player named
was exploring Walt Disnery soundtracks. It is no coincidence that a 1989 meeting of the Russian crew (Ponomareva, Kuryokhin, Chekasin, Tarasov) with John Zorn and Bill Laswell worked with Japan musician as well. She sings with Zorn on the CD titled
"Live in Japan" released by Leo Records in London. Let's go back into 1987. When Vapirov's album
"The Spirit of Ogdnu" (a legendary Siberian healer) appeared everybody was stunned; a gypsy singer got the spirit as if she were a native of Siberia. Just a few realized that Ponomareva's native Khabarovsk is deep in the middle of Asia, not Europe.
The end of 80s was extremely fruitful record-wise:
"Intrusion" - the second album of Ponomareva as a leader recorded live in Khabarovsk Jazz festival,
"Pop mechanics #17" (with Sergey Kuryokhin), "Pilgrims" (with the Arkhangelsk earthy Russian folk-avant-garde). Even the almost bankrupt Soviet "Melodia" Company hurried to produce two solo albums of Ponomareva:
"Temptation" and
"Terra
Incognita". But Melodia had already had no spirit to properly promote both of
them. So the best Ponomareva on record could be found also on Leo records Collections Document New Music from Russia and Conspiracy - the sound chronicle of the Soviet avant-garde jazz festival in Zurich (Switzerland,
1989). Two British radical improvisers Tim Hodgkinson and Ken Hyder shamanism explorers and Valentina started in London their new project
The GOOSE in the field of free improvised music with the influence of shamanic tradition of Siberia and Far East were they continued to study the real shaman practice. The trio performed at several European Jazz Festivals and in Russia as well.
Strange though it may seem or maybe it's quite natural, but the only descendant of Ponomareva in Russia, Sainkho Namchylak is also of a national minority and comes not from the European part of Russia, but from the Tuva, the south of Siberia; both singers had the same name for their collaborative efforts in the West at the same time: Tunguska - guska by Sainkho (a play by an international feminist crew) and
the Goose (Guska is Russian for She-Goose, or Duck) by Ponomareva (plus Tim Hodgkinson and Ken Hyder). This coincidence should not ignored. Maybe it reflects conformity to an unknown law of (creative)
nature? But Namchylak does not need the classic training and Jazz traditional improvisational skill and she does not spend so many time to resist against demons of the Soviet system. As soon as reaching star-status Sainkho preferred to stay in the West and is now the resident of Vienna,
Austria.
Ponomareva's line of fate is still drawn homewards. This line is still the first, the longest and the only one.
Ponomareva appeared in Moscow in 1969 - the first and the last year of the jazz club "Pechora" situated in the fashionable New Arbat district. Again she sang three-four numbers at a local jam-session, but everybody present still can recall a kind of electric circuit while she was doing "Watermelon man". Her Gypsy black hair and dark skin looked darker since she was in a snow-white dress. Immediately a question was posed, if this mysterious young woman is of black origin? A very famous Soviet scholar of African culture (who incidentally was of African descendants herself) even delivered a kind of scientific theory. According it some of the nomadic gypsies on their way to Europe had actually found their way to Africa. 
This is one line of her fate.The other one actually starts at the beginning of 1980s. Nothing happened under the name of jazz at the time, only commercially purified forms of mainstream jazz become the part of the Soviet cultural establishment (the Official Cultural monopolists were square enough to send a jazz-rock or a piano-bar trio to numerous avant-garde festival who demanded the Russian avant-gardists, that is the Ganelin trio with Vladimir Chekasin on saxophones. Then the Leningrad critic Efim Barban (he and this author were instrumental in turning the singer to 20th century new music) put Ponomareva in touch with Chekasin who was featuring the late pianist and conceptual artist
In the actual 1984 Valentina was the focal point of two legendary project of aforementioned Sergey Kuryokhin, which was appropriately called
Since mid-80s Ponomareva is regularly mentioned alongside Shelly Hersch, Jay Clayton and last but not least Diamanda Galas. Those who care somehow do not realise that Ms. Valentina was starting her carrier when those mentioned above were not even born and that the Russian Gypsy singer had to seek for the things (information, records, sheet music) her Western colleagues took for granted. That is Ponomareva had neither direct teachers, nor indirect ancestors. Luciano Berio and Cathy Berberian's "schizophrenic 'Visage'" was among a few truly new music works whom the Russian singer happened to listen to at the proper time. While working for movie soundtracks Ponomareva met the Russian Mystics as Schnittke, Denosiv and Gubaidulina are now known in the West. Communists tolerated way-out music for movies since film was the main article if the Soviet income budget (save for hard liquor sales) and they let avant-gardists loose, when it concerned film soundtracks, animated movies by Andrei Chrzanowski included. Work in for cinema was not only a regular source of decent wages, but the experience working with the best musicians available. Harmless as they might seem for ideologist, Chrzanowski's cartoons and Gubaidulina music were for Ponomareva the Sound and the Fury of contemporary art and the legal way to experiment in (and with) music as an art form.
No Russian artist at the time had a slightest idea that in America a Renaissance of film music is coming and a young avant-garde sax-player named
was exploring Walt Disnery soundtracks. It is no coincidence that a 1989 meeting of the Russian crew (Ponomareva, Kuryokhin, Chekasin, Tarasov) with John Zorn and Bill Laswell worked with Japan musician as well. She sings with Zorn on the CD titled
The end of 80s was extremely fruitful record-wise: