ROLAND
I'm Ari Roland, the bass player.

SCHATZ
Stefan Schatz, drummer, Ari Roland Quartet.

ROLAND
We were in, we started in Russia, and then we went to Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. I knew quite a bit about the region. I have a deep, deep interest in the region, so for me it was literally a dream tour. I've been dying to go to that region for about 8 years.

SCHATZ
I, probably like most people, only really knew about Kazakhstan from Borat. I honestly had never heard of any of those countries before and, sadly, you know, everyone wherever we went, they asked us, you know, "Have you ever heard of our country?" Since I've now been there, I really am very interested in that part of the world, and I find it very fascinating.

ROLAND
To be very honest, I was a little surprised by just how soft the Islam is there, meaning, um, you know, people are definitely Muslim and they definitely identify as religious - as being religious and as being Muslims - but it's much softer practice of Islam than, let's say, the middle east. In terms of gender roles or attitudes towards outsiders or attitudes towards non-Muslims.

SCHATZ
These musicians from Tajikistan, you know, they had organized this jam session for us at a jazz festival and I think that "jam session" really means something different in central Asia, I'm convinced of that now. It doesn't mean, like, "Hey guys, let's play Caravan, you take the first chorus." It means like, all right, we'll play for about a minute, and then you guys come on stage and you play something else, you know, while we're playing. It doesn't even have to be Caravan. This happened to us, and like this guy got on a wooden flute and just started playing some kind of other thing. Other tempo, other song. And like we were just, we kept doing what we were doing. And it was really one of the most outstanding experiences I had.

SCHATZ
Probably the most shocking experience with jazz in central Asia is in Kazakhstan. We met this man Tajir, you know, who is teaching these young kids about jazz and swing, and he's put together a big band, and it's just this little modest building in Alma-ti, which is a beautiful city. And he is probably in his 60s and he is doing incredible work with these kids. You know, they played some Count Basie, and if you had told me before I left that I was going to meet a drummer from Alma-ti, Kazakhstan who was 15 years old who could swing like that, I mean my had is off to Tajir, because he -- I don't know how he did it, but jazz is alive and well in Kazakhstan.

ROLAND
There was a great moment at a concert in Alama-ti where the little kid was, he was a maybe 10 year old piano player and Sasha went and stood over his shoulder and the kid would play a phrase and then Sasha would play a phrase and this went on for about 5 minutes, the audience going berserk, you know, and this kid held his own. You know, it was beautiful. It was just beautiful.

ROLAND
I used to tell these people all the time, I said, "We're the ones who are getting enriched here. We're giving you a little bit of jazz and you're giving us your whole country. Your people, your music, the beautiful landscapes. And maybe we're enriching your country a little bit but everyone in our country, they've never even heard of where we're going. And we're going to go back and tell them about the wonderful things we saw, so we're actually -- I find we're enriching ourselves, enriching America as much or more than enriching them.