Jazz Articles

Leo Volskiy: Good News Blues

by Chris Mosey
November 10, 2012

Saint Petersburg is Russia's jazz capital, home to Igor Butman-Bill Clinton's favorite living saxophonist, and chosen for his musical debut by none other than Vladimir “Fats" Putin. Pianist Leo Volskiy also hails from the city, but no longer lives there. After studying at the Mussorgsky College of Music and listening to local musicians at such clubs as the Jazz Philharmonic Hall and the Red Fox Jazz Cafe, Volskiy left in 2004 to live and work in Hamburg. From here he ...

Myrna Lake: Yesterdays

by Samuel Chell
May 8, 2010

Another album by a female vocalist, another familiar playlist. But hold the assumptions. This is the first and only commercial album by septuagenarian singer Myrna Lake, but that's not the real story here. The recording is noteworthy above all because it refuses to mistake youth for vitality, slickness for substance, or newness for originality.

Myrna Lake's Yesterdays (Jazzing Music, 2008) is less a trip down memory lane than an exploration of the power of memory itself, a musical ...

Myrna Lake: Yesterdays

by Chris Mosey
November 16, 2008

Yesterdays, vocalist Myrna Lake's second album, follows softly--as opposed to hard--on the heels of her independently released 2002 debut, Close Enough, when she was a spry young thing of 67. A late starter? Well, not really. Lake started singing three-part harmony with her father and sister at age six, and by 14 was performing with the Civic Opera company in her home city of St. Paul, Minnesota. Nowadays she lives in New York City where, health permitting, she works as ...

Ruslan Khain Sextet: Tie It In!

by Jerry D'Souza
October 7, 2008

Count Basie and Duke Ellington are among the musicians who drew bassist Ruslan Khain to jazz.  Their influence is manifested in his music, as he graces his compositions with melody and swing, and keeps an ear open for rhythm and harmony.  This is the stuff that good, solid mainstream jazz is all about, and Khain makes sure that he does not stray from the calling on Tie It In!

Ruslan Khain: Tie It In

by John Barron
September 18, 2008

Listening to Russian-born bassist/composer Ruslan Khain's music is like taking a step back in time to the spirited, swinging glory days of hard-bop in the 1950s and '60s. The New York-based musician's debut as a leader, Tie It In, pays homage to the classic sounds of legendary ensembles led by Horace Silver, Art Blakey and Benny Golson. The session, comprised entirely of Khain originals, showcases slick ensemble writing with a definite nod towards tradition. The bassist composes ...

Ruslan Khain Sextet: Tie It In!

by Chris Mosey
September 11, 2008

Change has been a constant in bassist Ruslan Khain's life. He was born in 1972 in Leningrad when the Soviet Union was still firmly and seemingly irrevocably in place. By 1994 when he was studying classical music at the Mussorgsky College of Music, the impossible had happened. The Soviet Union was no more and his home city was once again Saint Petersburg. Five years later Khain left for New York to play jazz. On arrival, he rapidly established his musical ...