Ulviyya in OK! magazine

Ulviyya is featured with other Baku jazz professionals in this month's OK! magazine in Azerbaijan.

Issues can be purchased at newstands throughout Baku.

Hurry and get your copy!

Ulviyya Marries in Baku

On September 25, Baku witnessed the marriage of Ulviyya Rahimova in a private ceremony to Jake Jones, and American democracy worker.

This link is one of the many media stories which covered the event attended by performers such as Azad Shabanov, Dilara Kazimova, Diana Hajiyeva, as well as guests from the United States, Ukraine, Latvia, Georgia, Czech Republic and many other places.


In addition to this big news, Ulviyya changed, or rather made an addition, to her name – Ulviyya Rahimova-Jones.

Required Listening - Gloomy Sunday

In 1933, Hunagrian composer Rezső Seress set a poem to music. The poem, by László Jávor, discussed the sadness and horror of a vapid modern culture. The melody was perfected to fit this sentiment. Listen to the original lyrics in this Hungarian video.


And the literal English translation:

Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer
A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you
It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...

Gloomy Sunday
This last Sunday, my darling please come to me
There'll be a priest, a coffin, a catafalque and a winding-sheet
There'll be flowers for you, flowers and a coffin
Under the blossoming trees it will be my last journey
My eyes will be open, so that I could see you for a last time
Don't be afraid of my eyes, I'm blessing you even in my death...
The last Sunday

The haunting sounds were considered so melancholy, so expressive, that many felt driven into despair by listening to it. And the despair increased its popularity. By the end of the thirties the song had been recroded in Russian, French, Japanese, German, Spanish, and English. The most famous recording may be Billie Holiday in 1941.

The girl who inspired the song, later killed herself with her suicide note reading only, “Gloomy Sunday”. Seventeen other suicides took place in Hungary where references to Gloomy Sunday were made (in the note or left on the record player). It was considered so depressive, that the song, including Holiday’s recording, was banned by the BBC for being “not at all in keeping with what we feel to be the need of the public in this country’.

After previous attempts, the composer committed suicide in 1968. Since then the song has been recorded by Elvis Costello, Sinead O’Connor, Bjork, Marianne Faithfull, Sarah McLachlan, Portishead, Ray Charles and Sarah Brightman. Click on the artist's name to hear their version. Each singer lends their own impression of emotion and the causes of melancholy.

Ulviyya releases a new single - Turn Back (Geri Dön)

Ulviyya’s new single, Turn Back, (Geri Dön) isn’t her traditional jazz style. But any one of her fans who hear the song will recognize her signature warm tones, jazz influence, and the optimism typical of her. Even with the song Turn Back, pleading with a lover to reform, rekindle what was before, reunite broken fragments of a once united bond, Ulviyya manages to express the desperation of the text while accenting her own notes of desire and hope.


The line, ‘I haven’t filled on the days of life yet, I haven’t filled on my time with you’ shows a craving and desire that blends with the remorse and nostalgia of the song. For those interested, here is the original Azerbaijani text:

Son zamanlar üzünü görmədim, səsini duymadı heç
Yaşadığım günlərdən doymadım, səndən heç doymadım, heç
Yalvarıram bax mənə, dinlə bax sozlərimə, inansan hisslərimə
Gozlərində yuxu çox, ondan sənə fayda yox
Mənə garşı sevgin yox

Geri donsən o günlərə
Verdiyin sən o sozlərə
Bağışladığın hisslərə
Geri Dön
Geri donsən o günlərə
Verdiyin sən o sozlərə
Bağışladığın hisslərə

Geri Dön

Later the song speaks of her lover’s eyes full of empty dreams but with no real intention, with no action. Whether stuck in a morass of depression and sloth, or a whirlwind of parties, drugs, and illusions, Turn Back is a cry for return.