Jazz Articles
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Empathy Project: Influences
by Don Phipps
Influences, a breezy affair from Empathy Project, is like viewing fluffy white clouds while seated at a street side café on the South Bank of Paris or the beach in Rio. The music swirls and bounces gently in boppish fashion -a happy affair with an emphasis on romance. Featuring soft but assured vocals from Alexandra Kurkova and Dmitry Vasiliev, the songs cover bossa nova, bop, classical, and swing (and The Swingle Singers), among other musical styles. Vasiliev composed ...
read moreAnna Mia: Miasophy
by Martin McFie
Kiev is the capital of Ukraine sitting uncomfortably between Europe and Russia on the Black Sea. A finance package with Europe was switched to financing from Russia. People took to the streets and the president left town for a long trip to Russia, which then annexed the Crimea. This is not the plot of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera or a history of nineteenth-century power diplomacy. It all happened four years ago. In the face of adversity, jazz music plays ...
read moreAnna Mia: Miasophy
by Mike Jurkovic
The music heard on Miasophy by Ukrainian singer Anna Mia and her distinctly ethereal quintet is a haunting, robustly compelling listen. Like spectral apparitions, her voice and the band conjure oddly shadowed, yet decisively intimate cabaret atmospheres, drawing you back to the whole or a particular song when you least expect it. The band, trumpeter Yakov Tsvetinsky, keyboardist Mikhail Lyshenko, double bassist Yury Natsvlishvili, and drummer Arthur Frolov are an energetically resilient combo, creating for Mia and her ...
read moreKonstantin Ionenko Quartet: Noema
by Mark Sullivan
Ukrainian bassist/composer Konstantin Ionenko introduces a striking new quartet on Noema. His previous release Deep Immersion (Fancy Music, 2013) was a quintet with piano, trumpet and saxophone. Only Ionenko and drummer Pavel Galitsky remain from that group, joined by new members Dima Bondarev (flugelhorn) and Alex Maksymiw (guitar). There was precedent for working with a guitarist, in the form of the Deep Tone Project, which he co-led with guitarist Alexandr Pavlov on the album Flow (Fancy Music, 2014). Both of ...
read moreKonstantin Ionenko Quartet: Noema
by Karl Ackermann
Bassist and composer Konstantin Ionenko continues to experiment with formations as he returns with yet another revised lineup on Noema. The name refers to a Greek word meaning “thought" or the content of thought. Recorded in Kiev, Ukraine and mastered in Moscow, the quartet album consists of eight original Ionenko compositions that bridge European chamber jazz and creative improvisation. As a composer, Ionenko has favored a refined blend of evocative lyricism and post-modern innovation and this release is no exception, ...
read moreKonstantin Ionenko Quintet: Deep Immersion
by Budd Kopman
The dark-toned, subtle, inviting and yet vaguely dangerous Deep Immersion represents electric bassist Konstantin Ionenko's project as a leader (and sole composer), the other being Flow from the Deep Tone Project, which he co-leads with guitarist Alexandr Pavlov. Ionenko does not hide this music's antecedents, which are sixties hard bop, complete with the two-horn front line declaiming the theme in unison, supported by a piano trio. However, this is no slavish copy of that era's aesthetic, nor even ...
read moreDeep Tone Project: Flow
by Budd Kopman
Flow might just be the perfect record for late-night, candle light-and-wine listening with that special someone. As the music comes out of the speakers, it floats and softly envelops the room in deep violet, making time stop for the duration. If the group can be said have a leader, electric bassist Konstantin Ionenko would share the honors with guitarist Alexandr Pavlov, since they each composed four of the tunes. Tenor saxophonist Viktor Pavelko and drummer Pavel Galitsky round ...
read moreDeep Tone Project: Flow
by Karl Ackermann
Beyond the recent headlines there is a cultural history in Ukraine that has influenced much of Europe and Western Asia since the middle ages. Under the Soviet regime, much of the country's classical and religious music was banned while the region's folkloric music not only thrived but, after Ukrainian independence, remained a defensive mechanism to counter the unwelcome influence of Western music. Jazz in particular was suspect, having once been labeled by Pravda as “The Music of the Gross." Though ...
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