“FROM THE FIRST NOTE, THE FIRST CHORD,
I FELT SOMETHING I HAD NOT FELT BEFORE.” A young Belarussian guitarist’s discovery of and tribute to Allan Holdsworth. By Allan Holdsworth Archives.
Bagdaan Batyrkin is a young musician and music student from Minsk, Belarus. He has recorded a version of “Texas”, where he plays guitar, bass and drums! The Allan Holdsworth Archives reached out to him, and asked him to tell a little about himself, and why he chose to do this. Here is Bagdaan’s story: “Klim Lukyanenok became my guitar teacher in music school, a truly inspiring, modern jazz guy. He introduced me to such musicians as Ben Monder, John Abercrombie, Roman Pilon, Jonathan Kreisberg, Adam Rogers.”
One day while Bagdaan was looking at these musicians on YouTube, something happened that changed his life: “I accidentally noticed in the proposed videos - a certain Allan Holdsworth performing at the Jarasum Jazz Festival, I decided to watch, and from the first note, from the first chord, something caught me, I felt something I had not felt before. From that moment I have never, never, never doubted that he is one of the best musicians. Unfortunately, when I first heard Allan's music, he was no longer with us.” Bagdaan’s main instrument is the guitar, and he chose to record “Texas” because he likes to improvise on the tune’s chord sequence. The bass and drums were done on instinct: “When I recorded the bass, I mostly played chord tones. My grandfather is a drummer, and in childhood, he taught me the basics. In this song I mostly play intuitively, relying on my inner feeling.”
Bagdaan doesn’t even like practicing on the drums. Stylistically, Bagdaan is clearly inspired by Allan’s guitar playing. But he also seems to have been inspired by Allan’s self-critical attitude: “Actually, I didn’t really like the final product, inside I still feel that I could have done it better, but...who knows... I consulted with friends and family, they advised to upload video to the Internet, see what the reaction people have. Well, it is what it is.”
Bagdaan is not content with following in his master’s footsteps: “Now I'm going to record my own music and develop further in a personal direction. I hope that someone will like it.”
It seems like a very healthy attitude from a talented young musician. We wish Bagdaan good luck, and hope to hear him take things further with his own music in the future.