Jazz Articles

Ivan Farmakovsky: Next To The Shadow

by Bruce Lindsay
October 30, 2009

According to his sleeve notes for Next To The Shadow, Russian pianist Ivan Farmakovsky has a passion for football and from the quality of the tunes on the album, his passion for jazz is also abundantly clear. This is Farmakovsky's first album as a leader and while the music breaks no new ground, it is played with such enthusiasm and ability that it is impossible not to share this passion. The tunes on this album, all written ...

Epos Group: Ilia

by Michael Askounes
January 1, 2001

Mixing traditional Russian folk tales with modern musical structures, Boheme Music's release “Ilia" by the Epos Group is an excellent presentation on how properly composed music and vocals can transcend languages, and deliver interesting and emotional content to even those who can't understand a word the singer is singing. “Ilia" is the musical re-telling of an old Russian folk tale, combining classic Russian song structures with today's technology to create a truly wonderful experience. This version of the “bylina" “Ilia" ...

Pesniary: Gusliar

by Michael Askounes
January 1, 2001

Eerie, cheesy, emotional, embarrassing - these are all words that accurately describe former Byelorussian folk outfit Pesniary's attempt to bring the epic poem Gusliar to the progressive rock arena. Unfortunately for the folks from the land of balalaikas, the bad outweighs the good in this attempt due to musical passages that are simply outdated. In the end, Gusliar winds up sounding like a mix between bad Italian prog and a high-school production of Hair.

One of the major problems with ...