The Ukrainian photo artist Boris Mikhailov provoked the authorities in the former Soviet Union with unembellished everyday photos and self-deprecating nude pictures. Like any good art, his work is not conformist to the system, but resistant and idiosyncratic. This is also true about the jazz scene of the USSR and the entire Eastern bloc, which usually led an intense, unadjusted life of its own under the radar of cultural functionaries.

This evening, Thomas Neuhauser, long-time ARTE editor and music journalist, will use music examples from various eras to show that jazz, wherever it was played, has always been free and liberating music.