Ella Leya

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Season 01
Ella Leya
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Show Details

In this episode, we explore Art and Culture as I chat with Ella Altshuler, a singer, song writer, jazz musician, author and poet about her life experiences growing up in Azerbaijan during the communist regime. Ella shared so much of her childhood and teenage years in Azerbaijan and then in Moscow where she was part of a Jewish theater and Jazz ensemble that in spite of being invited to international music festivals was unable to leave the country. She was able to migrate to the United States and finally came full circle as she was invited back to Azerbaijan where her latest book is being converted into a film.

Show Notes

Karthika interviews Ella Altshuler, a singer, song writer, jazz musician, author and poet originally from Azerbaijan who is now living in London. Ella openly shares her challenges growing up in communist Azerbaijan and how she challenged that restrictive culture by becoming one of the first, if not, only female Jazz vocalist. She then moved to Moscow to join a Jewish theater group but continued her singing and song writing career. She was able to leave all of that behind and migrate to the US in the 90s and continued to build her music career.

Ella attributes a lot of her success and tenacity to being an immigrant and a creative – one which made her bold and ask for things that she would have otherwise not gotten and the other helping her stay connected with her talents and helping her evolve from a musician to an author. Her latest book is now being converted to a film in Azerbaijan and Ella who went back after 30 years still felt that deep sense of connection to her home country, something she says a lot of us immigrants always have deep down.

The Transcript

Karthika: Welcome Ella. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Ella: Of course. It’s a pleasure.

Karthika: You have such a fascinating story and I know we’re going to have a great time getting to know you, but perhaps to just set the stage, can you give us a little bit of background where you’re from, your home country, where you grew up, your family, and just all that good stuff.

Ella: Yes. I was born in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. I’m a lived there until my late teens. Then I moved to Moscow during the theater, join jazz orchestra, studied at the music Conservatorium and then I immigrated to the United States. First it was Virginia then it was Chicago and then California. And now here I am in London, so that’s very short gist of my life.

Karthika: Excellent. You’ve kind of moved around quite a bit. So what are some of your core sort of memories growing up in Azerbaijan?

Ella: Sunshine and this very particular smell in the air. It is an oil city. It is one of the biggest producers of oil in the world, so it’s an incredible mixture of sun and oil in the air. And you know, I just visited for the first time in 30 years recently, and I was wondering when the plane landed and I was saying to myself, because in my book that I wrote the conclusion of the book, my character, my heroine returns back to Baku after many years and the first thing she responds, she reacts to, is that amazing mixture in there. So I stepped out of the airplane and I inhaled and it was exactly like how it was many years ago. That memory was absolutely right.

Karthika: Wow. Amazing that after so many years still you had that same reaction. And that same feeling. I mean, I guess it never really goes away what you know, where you’re from is always a part of who you are.

Ella: Certainly, you know, and it comes in such unexpected ways. For example, when I was there we went to a jazz festival and I was there with my friends. And then this gentleman walks in and just sits next to me in the chair, then leans to me and says, you know what you have actually not changed a bit. Now look at you. And I was almost speechless because I realize that the character in my novel was inspired by this artist that I met. Oh, it’s almost scary to say almost 40 years ago. I took a walk with hm through the city. And now so many years later he comes back and recognizes that 17 years old girl growing up in the Soviet Union was almost unthinkable. So definitely there is something within us. Sometimes it’s conscious, sometimes it’s so deep and it comes to the surface in the most unexpected ways.

Karthika: Wow. That is incredible. I’m like, speechless. I didn’t know what to say. It’s such a beautiful way of expressing and also feeling. So what were some of the challenges you faced when you were growing up?

Ella: You know. I always believe the challenges come with a comparison. Our challenges were to study very well, to achieve, to make our parents happy, to make our motherland happy, to be a good daughter to the communist regime. So until that last bit, I’d say it was pretty generic. It was pretty universal, but that last one was different. So I wanted to grow up and be an astronaut and fly to Mars and put that Soviet banner on Mars. So the challenge was to achieve, and over achieve. So the challenges were to protect our motherland from capitalism, from America, from democracy. And then almost overnight, everything changes. You expand your world by just accidental meeting. You hear a song from Liza Minnelli. At this time you don’t understand the words, but you love the music and it enters you. And produces some kind of a dormant of memory of something different. Something beautiful, something so huge, so much bigger than you or your belief in communities. So the challenges change. Suddenly you feel stray-jacketed. That beautiful childhood that you thought that that was the best and you want to get out, you want freedom, you want to experience something else. So the challenge changes. So that’s how I can say that I stepped from a comfortable and good Soviet childhood into rebellious teenage period.

Karthika: Liza Minnelli does tend to have that effect on people. It must have been quite a stark difference from all that you know that. Like you said, pleasing your mother land, doing everything for your country to then trying to figure out how to leave it all behind or escape it because of this freedom that you’re sort of getting a little insight into. So how did you kind of transition from that sort of a restrictive, if I could call it that environment to freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of expressing art, creativity, how did that come about?

Ella: You know, it all started with a green door. I’ve talked about that so many times. But there was a store that opened across the street from my school and everyone warned us not to come close not to go along because of the, the owner was either a sorcerer or a magician. So of course we just walked around the street and never went it. But some kind of a strange force kept pulling and pulling until I couldn’t resist. And I walked into that tiny little shop in there and found this very strange character sitting cross legged on the carpet in a turban and leather pants. And it was very unusual combination at that time in Baku. He lured me by putting the record of Liza Minnelli and I saw her poster from the cabaret and I was just absolutely stunned. I was hooked. I wanted to sing like this. There was so much nostalgia in my imagination. There was such a  beautiful world so far away that I did not know of. My grandmother told me some stories but I did not understand this white concept but I new it was something bigger than me. And at the time I was a student of classical piano and I participated in competitions and everything. But that moment all I could think of was the transition to jazz. Like I wanted to become a singer. I wanted to sing in that low, chesty, velvety voice. And I started coming to that little shop and this so sorcerer would play all these records for me. Like Ella Fitzgerald and I started imitating all the singers and I just found much freer ways of expressing myself than what I knew and had learnt.  form of expression. And then there was an incredible jazz musician in Baku who actually mixed the traditional Azerbaijani corporate form called Mugam with Western jazz and he died very young. He died before he even turned 40 and he was he was invited to Montreal and to the greatest jazz festivals. But he was never allowed to leave the country. So he died in poverty in Baku without even any having chance to play his music anywhere else. So in his memory, a group of musicians like myself and other enthusiasts. I think it was quite daring of us in this Soviet predominantly muslim country to play music and jazz in a cafe in public. I was one of the first girls to do.

Karthika: That’s incredible. Oh my God. I’m getting goosebumps just listening to you. That’s such an incredible experience, but so awfully brave of you to do so. I mean, the fact that it’s communist country, it’s a Muslim country. You’re doing jazz, which you know, is not typical. Were you scared?

Ella: I think that when we young we are not scared. It seems that we’re experimenting with life. We enjoy this. We don’t simply think about consequences much. Do we? I’ll give you a very funny example. In Azerbaijan they built this gorgeous beautiful music hall for one of the visits from a Soviet minister. It was like a floating city. Because someone realized that the minister loved jazz, the minister of culture quickly started looking for anyone who could actually put together a jazz program for him. And they found some owned, a gentleman that played jazz in the 50s and then jazz was prohibited and he played weddings and funerals for 20 years. So he put together a group of jazz musicians all from the 50s and I also played with them. But the society dignitary never showed up because he has some accident and went back to Moscow. But they opened this beautiful palace called ‘Gulistan Palace of Roses’ and we performed there for a few months and I will never forget that. Once my father’s colleague came up to him and said, you know, I saw your daughter on stage and my dad said, no you’re probably confused her with someone else. My Dad wasn’t particularly proud to hear that I was performing in a club.

Karthika: Right. I was just going to ask, I mean, with all these changes and all these kinds of ways of expressing yourself with music and jazz, how did your family react? How did your parents react to all this?

Ella: No, my parents were very cool, I have to say, but not that cool. They wanted me to become an engineer. Like my dad. They wanted me to continue with my music education. The idea of their daughter performing on stage was not exactly what they had in mind for me, but at the same time they were really  intelligent and very understanding people. They were incredible supportive, in whatever they felt our passion lay. So for example, I was invited to study in Moscow at the music college because I won some music competition like a music olympic but I was only thirteen. So my dad took me to Moscow to study there. Of course I got very scared and it was my choice to return back to the Baku, but I can only say that I’m now going back so many years. I understand my parents very well and I see that they were pretty brave dealing with two girls. My parents used to say that, what can we do? We’ve got two extraordinary daughters.

Karthika: Thats fabulous. So then why did you decide to leave all that? And migrate, was it by choice or was it circumstance?

Ella: First of all, I left Baku for Moscow. I joined the Jewish Music Theater in Moscow. It was sort of a clandestine operation because this was the Soviet Union was quite antisemitic country. Not Azerbaijan, I did not face anything growing up. But moving to Moscow it was quite horrendous. And for Jewish theater to exist in the middle of the capital was not something that the government wanted it. So the story of how the theater was created was quite amazing because the director of the theater, was a public artist, amazing choreographer and musician and composer. He basically invited all the diplomats, all the ambassadors at the time who lived in at beautiful Taganka Square. And he locked the whole cast in the theater because the Soviet government sent bulldozers to just destroy the building,  and he, so he threatened the government to blow up the building. The only way to create the Jewish theater was to show in front of the whole world that Jews were persecuted and that the Jews could not have their own theater since 1946 when the head of the Jewish theater was actually viciously killed. So that’s. I joined the theater because it was so incredible oasis for youth like me who wanted to sing and dance modern dance, and dreamed about a world outside of the iron curtain.

Karthika: I mean, sounds like you, you know, you’ve, you’ve had such a fascinating life and you’re at this time, you’re probably what in your teens, right?

Ella: I moved, I moved to Moscow. Actually, I, when I moved this, I kept going back and forth. I moved there when I was almost 22 years old. That’s when I started working at the Jewish musics theater. Before that I tried to leave the Soviet Union and I was refused. So I joined a group called refusinecs,  people who were not allowed to leave the Soviet Union and started working with the Jewish music theater. And then I started touring with these two major jazz groups. But I was never allowed to leave for abroad.

Karthika: Wow. Ella, I mean, everything that you have just shared gives us so much insight into what life must have been like for you as a creative as an artist inside the iron curtain. And as I’m listening to you, I feel like in spite of it all sounds like you and the rest of the group really found a way to pursue what you love. I mean, it’s clear that music and jazz and it’s all such a strong part of you as a creative, as an artist that you somehow found a way to pursue your passion. Thats commendable. Let’s kind of get back to a little bit of the Immigration and Migration Story. So after Moscow you came to the States?

Ella: Yes. I came to America. I performed Jazz for an American Industrialist called Armand Hammer, and he was connected to Mickey Kantor who became Bill Clinton’s manager of his campaign. George Keith, who wrote the constitution of Los Angeles. So these three people, they helped me to get out of the Soviet Union. I’m thankful to this day, to this three people who they reached out to the Senate and everything. They were able to get me out of the Soviet Union. So I arrived in Virgina in 1990.

Karthika: So how was that experience coming into an environment like the States, which is so different from what you’re used to. How did you transition into life here? Was it, was it easy? Was it difficult? How did you kind of overcome any sort of challenges and make a life for yourself here?

Ella: It was very strange at first because here I am in Moscow after all said and done. It’s a very huge, very cultural, very sophisticated, very major city. And a few hours later, I’m in Norfolk, Virginia. So I’m in small town in a two story buildings with lots of people who were on welfare. So it was very scary. I remember first two, three days, I had no idea even how to get from point a to point B, right? Because after all said and done, we see. And that’s what complicated about all this, that you reject life because you want this freedom. You want a freedom of expression. You want to see the world. On the other hand, you realize that here you are now in America. And that element of humanity that kept us very close in Moscow, in the Soviet Union is sort of not as strong as what we used to. So I think that was the hardest thing for me at the beginning, just to understand how can I walk the streets. I always loved walking in Moscow. We walked from street to street for kilometers. But here I couldn’t ever get to a store. But soon I met people and within the first 3 weeks we had formed a nine Jazz ensemble music group.

Ella: And so together with a wonderful gentleman, a jazz saxophone player we put together an amazing 90s group. And after the first month I started teaching at Old Dominion University. So in that respect it was very quick. I just went to the University of Norfork. At first I was sent to work at some paper company. They gave me this job. I’m sitting with 50 women and working on computers. I came to the office, to this room and work there exactly for an hour and a half. Then I called that gentleman Dan, because I didn’t have a car and in Norfolk I couldn’t get anywhere without a car. So I asked him to pick me up and take me to the nearest university. So he brought me to Old Dominion University. I asked where the music department was. I went to the music department, asked the first person I saw where was the head of Department who said he was the one and I said to him that I must teach in their school with my very, very limited English. I told him I graduated from Moscow conservatory and had tried my hand at everything and that I was great so I just really must get that job and that he had to hire me. So I started teaching the next week.

Karthika: Wow, I am blow away by your tenacity.

Ella: I have to tell you that that’s what immigration does. Would I ever do something like this now? No. I would be sitting for years, for decades and obsessing about how to do and how to write the letter and how. No, that’s exactly the element of immigration. That’s why we immigrants we succeed because we don’t have a choice.

Karthika: Absolutely. I mean it’s like you leave everything that you know, all that is familiar, all that you’ve grown up with and suddenly you’re thrown into a situation or a place or you have no idea, but somehow you land on your feet and you take those steps as in your case, going up to the music department and saying, I need a job. You don’t take no for an answer. Do you have a job for me or you know, I would like to apply. It’s like I need a job, this is what I do and I do it really well and I need, I need this. I applaud your tenacity and you are so spot on in that as immigrants, that’s something we have going for us. We don’t have a choice. Sometimes we have escaped a bad situation, sometimes we have left something really good for a change and in other cases we’ve made a conscious decision to leave everything so we don’t really have a choice.

Ella: Of course, this whole immigration process goes through so many stages. There was a stage like we just talked about when you come and you suddenly feel so patriotic involved the best that you actually left, you escaped and suddenly here you are facing your so called dream and the only thing you have is to hold on to is actually your patriotism for the country who escaped. So I think that’s a very kind of initial stage in this process of liberation. And for me it was maybe a little bit different because I started with this Americanization process while still in the Soviet Union by way of Jazz, by spending a lot of time with foreigners, with Americans. But nevertheless, here I was at the beginning. The major thing that’s taken from us is our pride and how do we deal with this? First holding onto something from the past, from other, previous successes from our previous comfort. Then we gradually begin to build up something that we can call our own and I think it’s a very exciting process. In my case, professionally speaking, it happened very fast, almost too fast. There were moments. I remember when we were doing one of the big concept piece that was developed in Richmond and we did our program with our band and I remember feeling like it was all happening too fast.

Karthika: So you were an artist, a singer and a musician very early in life. And now you are an author, so kind of walk us through how that came about. How did music and art sort of transition into a book? I think earlier you mentioned you did some sort of autobiography as well. So what was going through your head when you decided to kind of become an author?

Ella: So when I lived in the Soviet Union and I refused to sing in Russian, Russian represented for us the language of oppression. So I came to America I was singing in English. Once I was just warming up and I started singing in Russian and my  producer comes up to me and says, what did you just say? This is amazing. And I was like Oh, just a Russian romance number. He said, why are you recording jazz when this is what you should be singing. This is the most beautiful thing that ever came out of your mouth. So 14 years into my immigration journey, I record Russian romance. And the songs that I wrote all the music came from my favorite dream, from my childhood or from my own poetry. And that was the most successful album. And I dedicated that to my parents because this is something that they would obviously relate to. Then I got interviews by a LA Times music critic and she asked me all these questions about my life for the feature story. And at the end of it, she said you’ve got such an amazing life and the way you speak, you’ve got to write a book. She asked me if I had ever done any writing? And I said, you know, I wrote some drama and I remember I was approached by this famous Chicago drama group to write. So that critic, she wanted to do a show based on my life. So thats how I got my start with writing.

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Karthika: What you said in my mind just sort of solidifies this hypothesis that I have that, you know, at the end of the day where we are from, wherever you’ve grown up and like you said, the air, the soil, the neighborhood, all of that is always going to be a part of who we are. As much as we try to subdue it or kind of layer it with these other sort of cultures and experiences. It is still there and  it will manifest itself in some way, shape of form sometime in our lifetime. And to hear you kind of say the same thing, I really appreciate it because a lot of times we struggle. I am from India, but I haven’t lived there for a long, long time. Am I still Indian or am I American or am I a mix of both? And is that okay? And I’ve come to realize that it is totally okay. It’s okay to identify myself as Indian or in your case, identify yourself as from Baku and your experiences are still such a big part of you. So it is heartening to hear that it’s all right. It is all right to let those kinds of feelings manifest itself in some way, in some creative way, or even just thoughts and feelings. You’re not kind of doing any disservice to your adopted country or your home country if you kind of pick it up at some point. Right?

Ella: No, immigration makes us just bigger human beings. You know, my experience of going to my home country after so many years, after writing a book that is becoming their contemporary classic and visiting the city. It’s probably one of the most beautiful cities in the world now. And I, I even said that going there and coming back, it was like I went to a fairytale and returned from the fairytale. When I met with the Minister Of Culture and we discussed all this element of the book, he just said to me ‘ Ella, you are Bakuka’, which means you know, ‘you are ours’ no matter how long have you haven’t been here, no matter what languages you speak. And I responded that I had Baku in my memory for 30 years, but now as I am here, I feel that I have always had in my Baku in my heart as well.

Karthika: Now you went back after 30 years. Was it easy to mingle and integrate back not just physically but also on a more subconscious level?

Ella: It was incredibly easy. First of all, it is a unique place and the reason I went there, I was part of a humanitarian forum. It’s a very interesting thing that Azerbaijan initiated it. This is a unique place in respect that there was no tension whatsoever. Unfortunately there is some tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia. It’s still work to be done because of that unfortunate conflict. But other than that being Jewish in Azerbaijan is incredible pride. There are so many ethnicities in Azerbaijan now. Actually even during the Soviet Azerbaijan, having all those different ethnicities living together was a matter of pride. I joked that I felt like I was a homecoming queen. I spoke with some of the locals there and we shared hopes and dreams and I realized that we all have a shared sense of humanity. No matter where we are and where we live, that common thread connects us together.

Karthika: Yes, I completely agree. One of my other guests had mentioned this word. She said energy matches where you feel that attraction to a place and you can’t quite put your finger on it. Sometimes it is from a past life or sometimes from this lives that like you going back. There’s always that feeling like you’ve never left whatever the circumstances of you leaving, when you go back with this feeling of you’ve never left.

Ella: I have a good comparison with in music. I say that music is not in the notes, but in what is between them. And I think that and the same thing in the theater when there is a phrase and then there is a pause. And the way we connect with our audience is through those pauses, right? Because it’s that what we’re talking about, that genetic connection that inherited whatever inner connection that we have with our people, with our places of childhood that we develop to some extent. We begin to understand, let’s say anecdotes in our adopted countries. We begin to use a references to a situations, to names and to some events, but thats when those energy matches happen. And this is, I guess that divine part of our humanity.

Karthika: Yes. Absolutely. Now you’ve moved around quite a bit and now you’ve had an opportunity to go back home and get that experience too. Are you ever homesick? Do you ever find yourself thinking about your childhood or just that feeling of homesickness? I guess for lack of a better word?

Ella: No, I used to feel homesick. This is one thing about moving that much, you adjust to new places and faces easy enough. I emotionally considered Chicago one in only home I’ve had after I left Soviet Union, we lived there for 10 years. I have my parents buried there and I’m having a sister living there and I have my dearest friends living in Chicago now. I’m here in London, developed a circle of friends here. But I think that I cannot say that I am homesick. I recently went to Baku. We’re talking now about adapting my book into film. I cannot talk for others, but I think for us artists who is not in a geographical physical place, I think that sacred place inside ourselves to a which we don’t find escape, find source of inspiration, source of new information, source of comfort.  I’ll speak for myself. I think that’s probably when I’m homesick is when I am not creative.

Karthika: No, that’s beautiful. I know, I mean there are definitely two schools of thought of, you know. One is that wherever I am and wherever I have my life now is home, so I try to make the most of it and then there’s the other school of thought that there are some places where I feel more at home or I feel more at ease than others. But you’ve kind of expressed it so beautifully from a creative standpoint, from an artistic standpoint that the place where you create, whether it’s physical or internal is home.

Ella: Yeah. It might also have to do also with age that has. Because you know, when I was younger, I always used to say I need to be in the center of something. Like when I was in Moscow, I had to live in the center of the city. It could be tiny little apartment, but it had to see the stars of the Kremlin. Then then I lived in Chicago, lived in Lincoln Park. I love the energy. Then we lived in California. It was Laguna beach the small town between Los Angeles and San Diego and I struggled at first until we moved to a place that was right on the water. So all we had to do was walk 21 steps to the water. So to me, I convinced myself that this incredible, this Pacific Ocean is going to be that source of energy for me like how Moscow was before. Now we’re in London, in the center of the city, but I have to tell you I might as well be in Dublin. I can live anywhere with just my computer, with few of my favorite books with my music. I would be as happy as I am in the central London, maybe even less distracting.

Karthika: Incredible. This has been such a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much. Just maybe a couple of questions to sort of wrap it up. So what lies ahead for you? Are you living your dream or is there some other interesting stuff that you perhaps can share with us on that’s coming up next.

Ella: Well! I’m working on my next novel. I am working on some new music. I just did a TV show which I am very excited about. I am doing a film based on my book and I am very happy with the process that was set in motion during my visit to Baku for my book. I am thinking of traveling and going to my girlfriend in Budapest or for symphony going to Malta. So I guess just continuing with my life. Can I say that I’m living my dream? I don’t know. I just like to keep busy. I like it when my mind is busy with ideas. I feel like I almost feel that I slide into depression when I just kind of stuck. But I think it’s this creative process that I have no idea where it’s going to take me tomorrow.

Karthika: Spoken like a true creative. We constantly want to express that creativity. We want to keep doing things we want to explore. We want to ideate and when we have none of that, we feel stuck. And I feel like you said, a little depressed because you’re not doing something, you’re not expressing that creativity, all that pent up energy. So I can completely relate to that. But thank you so much Ella. I wish you the very, very best. I’m so excited to follow your journey. I want to read the book. I want to watch film. I want to listen to the music. All of it.

Ella: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It is so wonderful to speak to you. I love your energy and I love what you’re doing.

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