Jazz Articles about Riccardo Oliva

Yelena Eckemoff: Scenes From the Dark Ages

by Tyran Grillo
April 29, 2025

Yelena Eckemoff has long composed as though mapping weather rather than terrain, tracing pressure systems of mood and atmosphere while leaving strict pulse to others. Her music often moves with purpose yet refuses the easy certainties of groove, circling rhythm instead of kneeling before it. This has never felt like abstinence or austerity. It feels more like rhetoric. She addresses rhythm, engages with it, but rarely submits for the mere sake of doing so. That is why “Pilgrims," the opening ...