Yelena Eckemoff
Yelena Eckemoff is an internationally renowned Russian-born pianist, composer, poet, and visual artist who organically blends classical elements with jazz improvisation in evocative and uniquely distinctive works that strike a delicate balance between through-composed frameworks and open-ended exploration and improvisation. Music career. Eckemoff was born in Moscow, Russia, in the Soviet Union. Her mother was a professional pianist and teacher. When Eckemoff was four, she started to play piano by ear and took lessons from her mother. At seven, she attended Gnessin State Musical College, a school for gifted children. Studied classical piano at Moscow  State Conservatory. After graduating, she taught piano in Moscow. She gave solo concerts, took jazz classes, composed music for several instruments, and played in a jazz-rock band. In 1991, she moved to the U.S. She recorded in several genres: classical, vocal, folk, Christian, and new-age. She released her first jazz album, "Cold Sun", in 2010, (L&H, 2010) accompanied by drummer Peter Erskine and Danish bassist Mads Vinding. Record is built around a winter theme, the album finds the three players exploring a sparse, almost desolate sonic territory. What stands out most in these wide-open spaces is the  tremendous chemistry between the musicians. With Danish bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Peter Erskine the band communicates in a way that evokes an easy mood and the sounds of nature. The bass becomes the rhythm of feet falling in snow, while cymbals mimic breath or wind, and the piano traces a landscape from runs sloping up and down the keyboard. The line between the melodies themselves and the improvisation is often hard to distinguish, but they’re both clearly defined. Individual solos are fairly brief, and the result is that the nuances and personality of each musician shines out at  almost any given point, lending tremendous nuance and tenderness. Eckemoff has both the ability to let a moment of silence stretch time between her phrases and the appreciation to let her sidemen ornament the quiet in their own way. Although jazz is associated with improvisation, Eckemoff often writes her tunes out. Her music has been described as classical chamber music in the context of improvisational jazz. She developed a highly acclaimed jazz style that incorporates her classical technique and influences very effectively. With each new record Eckemoff's distinctive, recognizable approach to melody becomes even more prominent. Yelena Eckemoff uses  life and nature's bouquets as her muse to create the body of work that blends post-modern abstraction, classical thought, and jazz language into a seamless whole. True to her classical-jazz impressionism, Eckemoff sees humanity in nature. Eckemoff's "Grass Catching the Wind" (L&H, 2010) a piano trio with Mads Vinding on bass and Morten Lund on drums. All originals and have strong rhythm along with crisp and clever finger work of pianist. Eckemoff's "Forget-me-Not" (L&H, 2011) with Mats Eilertsen on bass and Marilyn Mazur on drums and percussions offers a journey of introspection, exploration  and emotional intelligence. One cannot help but be profoundly moved by hearing her approach and ideas. Though classically influenced in nature, each composition is entrenched in the modern jazz idiom. For "Glass Song" (L&H, 2013), she reenlisted Erskine and brought bassist Arild Andersen into the fold for the first time. Surprisingly, neither veteran had ever recorded together, but you would never know it. Eckemoff, Andersen and Erskine create music that's focused, yet free floating, and open, yet never nebulous. Pure melody is of less importance than the greater narrative in each number, but the music still sings out  with melodic grace. The music is situated between the abstract and tender expressiveness of a Northern European style and lyricism. Eckemoff has a light but decisive touch, plurality of stylistic elements and great ability to manage pauses, as well as considerable lyrical fantasy in improvisations and a willingness to dialogue with partners. Yelena Eckemoff 's "Lions" (L&H 2015), with bassist Arild Andersen and drummer Billy Hart is a long but comprehensive look at animals in the wild with human touches. The cover is a fine painting depicting lions in the savannah, and each of the tracks is linked to a  poem. The music, words and artwork are all by Eckemoff, and there is a clear relationship between the poems and the corresponding sounds. At the beginning, the central character observes a young lioness: “How much I wish to be her!” but then the subject is transported – as if in a dream or a fantasy – on the wings of Migrating Birds (evoked by Hart’s flapping brushes) from human form to that of a lioness. The record is a classical-jazz soundtrack that goes beyond the superficial, intermission grabs for attention and seeks out the feelings beneath the eerily accurate movements . "Everblue" (L&H, 2015) has Arild Andersen, saxophonist Tore Brunborg and drummer Jon Christensen. This Norwegian all-star contingent fits beautifully into Eckemoff’s aesthetic: Andersen with his looming pronouncements like final summations; Christensen with his suggestive rhythmic ambiguity; Brunborg with his clear, clean sound and respect for space. "Glass Song", "Lions" and "Everblue" contain some of the most powerful, poetic work of Andersen's long career. Her album "Leaving Everything Behind" (L&H, 2016) is united around themes of departure and loss. She wrote a poem for each piece and made the cover art. She is accompanied by violinist Mark Feldman , whose background is in classical and country music. Several compositions date from the 1980s; a time when she was just beginning her exploration into jazz. These pieces seem highly refined, replete with airy, vague harmonies that refer equally to Bill Evans and Claude Debussy. "Blooming Tall Phlox" (L&H, 2017) is intended to evoke different scents that Yelena Eckemoff recalls from her childhood in Russia. These powerful smells trigger a myriad of magical memories, each of which somehow, is transformed into a moveable feast of sounds – melodies set free by Yelena Eckemoff on a gloriously tuned piano and harmonised by Verneri  Pohjola, a Finnish horn player, together with Panu Savolainen on vibraphone, Antti Lötjönen on bass and the percussionist colourist Olavi Louhivuori. On "In The Shadow Of A Cloud" (L&H, 2017), she gathered together a brand new batch of sidemen to flesh out fond memories made back in Russia: Chris Potter (tenor/soprano sax, flute, bass clarinet), Adam Rogers (electric guitar), Drew Gress (double bass), and Gerald Cleaver (drums). The 14-track, original double-album continues where Eckemoff last left off in a series of instrumentals that tries to capture the feeling of her childhood and her loving Russian family through  classical-jazz music. As with her previous releases, Eckemoff augments her original compositions with her poetry (28-page track list) and her art (the bucolic album cover), plus black and white family photos. In The Shadow Of A Cloud features Eckemoff’s classically enhanced lyricism and nimble, oftentimes surprising jazz gravitas woven in layered, high-brow, high-standards interplay. For "Desert" (L&H, 2018) Eckemoff convened Oregon’s Paul McCandless (oboe, English horn, soprano sax, bass clarinet), Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, and drummer Peter Erskine, three players with decades of recordings and gigs behind. All four musicians are integral to "Desert"‘s  tapestries. Erskine is a wellspring of percussive imagination, Andersen unfailing, McCandless indispensable, and Eckemoff her usual attentive, supportive self. Though McCandless is the one most responsible for articulating the melodic character of a given piece, each player’s contributions are critical; in augmenting his drumming with percussion, for example, Erskine does much to help evoke the mystery of the Arabian locale. Interplay is at a consistently high level, and solo episodes emerge naturally from the ensemble. While "Desert" is by default jazz, it also could be labeled World music for its aromatic fusion of Arabic music, jazz, and classical. On  Better than Gold and Silver (L&H, 2019) there are the vocal and instrumental representations of the same compositions. Here Eckemoff has surrounded herself with some of the top jazz musicians in New York, and these include Joey Baron on drums, Ralph Alessi on trumpet, Ben Monder on electric guitar, and Drew Gress on double bass, with the violin of Christian Howes and on the first CD only vocals of Tomás Cruz, tenor, and Kim Mayo, mezzo soprano. As a whole, all the music has been inspired by the Psalms of the second King James bible, but you need not have  any interest in or knowledge of the contents of that book in order to appreciate the music which can be listened to on its own terms. The music works best when taken at medium tempo with several instruments in conversation with one another, as illustrated on, ‘Psalm 58’, which starts off with a guitar intro and then acquires a head of steam with trumpet and guitar engaging in a modern-day cutting edge contest. A laid back blues feel permeates, ‘Psalm 119 Lamed’, with the bass lines of Gress betraying a strong influence of J.S. Bach, while further classical hues  are manifest on, ‘Psalm 119 Nun’, with a delicate duet between piano and violin. Above all else, it is the reposing tranquility and calming re-assurance of the music that the listener will warm to as both a deeply soothing and healing experience. This excellent effort makes it into the best new recording list of the year and deservedly so. Eckemoff recorded "Colors" (L&H, 2019) with drummer Manu Katché. In the 14-part suite "Colors," the Russian and the Frenchman together color the stages in a woman’s life. Delicate cymbals jingle like the eyelids of a baby in “Pink ,” rocky toddler energy determines the driving “Orange,” in “Blue” the play figurines, which the expectant mother builds up in the nursery, come to life. It is a constant give and take between Eckemoff and her delicately melting compositions and Manu Katché, who always remains true to his groove line without slipping into the bold. Even death, which ends the sensitive exchange of keys, drums and cymbals in “Black,” can be endured optimistically calm. "Nocturnal Animals" (L&H, 2020) feature Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen from "Everblue", while Tore Brunborg’s place is taken by Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen, making for both  a fascinating line-up and an outstanding two-CD set. This is Jon Christensen’s final recording session and it stands as a lasting testament to his space-conscious, cymbal-shimmering and bar-slipping magic. Eckemoff ‘s lyrical touch and very particular approach to what one might call the “weight” of phrasing, dynamics and rhythm are set in service of compositions which precipitate an unerringly characterful blend of poetically wrought beauty and a distilled yet expansive improvisational verve. There’s much rubato inwardness here, as in the mellow “Cicada”, “Toad”, “Firefly”, “Owl” and the opening atemporal figures of “Wolf”. But  there are also extensive passages of joyous, forthright albeit freshly turned and textured swing, exemplified by the development of “Hedgehog” and the medium-up “Fox”, with Arild Andersen’s delicious walking figures on the latter underpinning Eckemoff ‘s chordal incisiveness and deft linear flights. All in all, a splendid, unmissable example of a most distinctive artist’s ever-thoughtful, ever-lively and – above all – soulful world. Eckemoff’s "Adventures of the Wildflower" (L&H, 2021) is the story of a life, from birth to death (and rebirth), of an anthropomorphic columbine flower. Its story is told through the inspired work of  Yelena Eckemoff and a Finnish ensemble that includes saxophonist Jukka Perko, multi-instrumentalist Jarmo Saari, vibraphonist Panu Savolainen, bassist Antti Lötjönen and drummer / percussionist Olavi Louhivuori. Eckemoff supplements her original music with an 18-part narrative poem (one part for each composition) that tells Columbine’s story. While nuanced, the narrative is built on an earnest simplicity, like a children’s story. The music, on the other hand, is much more complex and is divided between the Slavic soul of the composer and pianist, and the Scandinavian coolness of the other musicians. While beautifully melodic, the harmonic variations, dissonant passages  and rhythmic changes are fully contemporary. The multiple levels of melody in “Home by the Fence” or “Children Playing with Seed Pods” are sumptuous feasts for both the ear and the intellect, while pieces like “Chickens,” “Butterflies,” and “Another Winter” are filled with experimental, even psychedelic, textures. The sounds Jarmo Saari conjures from his guitars, theremin, and glass harp lend the music a unique palette, augmented by the bold, unconventional playing of Jukka Perko, Panu Savolainen, Antti Lötjönen, and Olavi Louhivuori.