Blues In The Moscow White Nights - Jon Hammond Trio Russia Concerts with Igor Butman Story

Read Story with Pictures *Here:


The story of my first concerts in Russia with Igor Butman (sax), Eduard Zizak (drums) by organist Jon Hammond (USA) for Jazz Quad

Coming to Russia to play in concert together with Igor Butman and Eduard Zizak recently, was one of the greatest experiences in my life/career! I was highly anticipating this journey for many reasons. First of all since my family originally came from Russia and Latvia many years ago, I had heard so many stories as a young child about the land and people I was about to visit. My grandparents were never able to return to Russia but when I arrived it felt like I was coming home.

From the beginning of my preparations I could see that this was not going to be any ordinary music tour! From obtaining visas it was apparent that the procedure was slightly different. I traveled with my girlfriend Jennifer on British Airways departing JFK to London and then from there we changed planes to Moscow. Upon arriving at Moscow SVO airport we quickly found ourselves among 20 persons who arrived with no baggage. There was nobody there to speak in English with from BA, so we had an interesting conversation and procedure with the official Lost and Found desk there and filled out the Baggage Irregularity Report papers. Leaving the customs area without our baggage we were very happy when we stepped out and saw a nice man holding a big Jon Hammond poster. We knew this was our man!
Luckily we came 2 days before the concerts and our bags were finally found and delivered to our hotel the next day. *continued from Link...