Jazz Times

Dan Bilawsky for Jazz Times

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Yelena Eckemoff is no synesthete, yet she’s long conjured the sound of colors through the piano’s keys. In this duo encounter with style-spanning drumming Manu Katché, she explores the titular topic with the most marked of intentions.

Eckemoff traces the various stages of human life and growth in various tints and tones. The album opens with “White,” a radiant yet fragile take on tabula rasa. “Black,” not surprisingly, sits at the other end of the journey. It’s weightier, with greater wisdom and experience to be found in its poetry. But purely bleak it’s not. Clearly, death isn’t the definite end in this darkest of dimensions.

Exploring another 12 shades of being between those poles, Eckemoff and Katché prove both sympathetic and suggestive in their union. Whether channeling childhood through the rocking “Orange,” playing on young love’s mystery and beauty in the blooming “Violet,” or daydreaming and worrying about new life’s arrival on “Blue,” this duo manages to create a fine mixture of calculation and impulse. Eckemoff’s emotional arcs prove unpredictable in the most positive of ways and, with Katché’s cymbals and skin tones accompanying her, even the most simple and serene notions play as something more significant.

Despite having already showcased her classically informed, ECM-influenced aesthetic on more than a dozen albums in the past decade, seeing to everything from accompanying artwork and poetry to composing and contracting, Eckemoff shows no signs of slowing down. The music continues to flow, and her well clearly runs deep.

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Dan Bilawsky for Jazz Times

Thomas Conrad for Jazz Times

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Yelena Eckemoff has a story and a discography unique in jazz. She was classically trained during her childhood in Moscow, immigrated to the United States in 1991 and began making jazz records in 2010. She uses the best studios, the best engineers and the best musicians for her projects. Her sidemen have included Peter Erskine, Mark Turner, Joe Locke, Billy Hart and George Mraz.

As a jazz pianist and composer, Eckemoff retains a classical sensibility in her precise touch and in her systematic, refined, orderly forms. She writes minimalist études of romantic impressionism. The badasses she brings in to help her play them thrive in her measured yet open environments. Six of her releases to date are piano-trio recordings. Those with bassist Arild Andersen contain some of the most powerful, poetic work of his long career. Two of her recent albums engage additional players. Everblue has 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.

Into the title track, which Eckemoff begins with glistening, small, widely separated clusters, Brunborg steps carefully, in long, solemn tones. Andersen’s entrance is dramatic, a slow, intense brooding. Their three very different voices then coexist in the song. A fourth, Christensen’s, scatters accents beneath them. Eckemoff’s tunes are grids that leave large spaces for improvisers. “Skyline” is all unanswered questions, Brunborg chasing its elusive, floating melody. “Abyss” is darker; upon Eckemoff’s bare frame, Andersen and Brunborg overlay portents and incantations.

That most of the compelling content on an Eckemoff album comes from her sidemen doesn’t diminish her achievement in setting up the rapt procedures that comprise her catalog. For an album so pretty, Everblue is deep.

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Thomas Conrad for Jazz Times

Thomas Conrad for Jazz Times

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Yelena Eckemoff was born in Moscow and studied at the prestigious Gnessin Academy and the Moscow State Conservatory. She has lived in the United States since 1991, and was a classical pianist until about 2009, when she reinvented herself as a jazz musician. Her new album, Glass Song, has a theme. It is about the particular moment when the ice of winter begins to melt, promising the eventual arrival of spring. Her compositions have titles like “Dripping Icicles” and “March Rain.”

Eckemoff’s classical background is audible in the intricacy and proportion and refinement of each song’s design, and in the measured caution of her improvisations. But she is more romantic impressionist than academic. Her forms, for all their order and precision, are heartfelt. Her sonic metaphors are often apt, like the pretty cycling phrases of high treble melody that stand for “Melting Ice,” and the splashes of light that represent “Cloud Break.”

The risk with such music is sentimentality and preciousness. Eckemoff protects herself against these pitfalls by employing a world-class, powerfully assertive yet sensitive rhythm section. Bassist Arild Andersen and drummer Peter Erskine had never played together before. It’s difficult to think of a piano trio album, led by the pianist, that is so defined by its bassist and drummer. Andersen’s role is so prominent, and he is positioned so far forward in the mix, that Glass Song is like a piano/bass duo project with drum accompaniment. His rich bass sound, down to its bottom octave, is beautifully recorded; his lyrical, commanding lines flow all through Eckemoff’s fragile melodies; and his looming presence imparts drama. Everything Erskine plays is interesting, whether he is soloing melodically, like on “Dripping Icicles,” or shading and highlighting details within these songs, adding subtle edges.

H. Allen Williams for Jazz Times

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Russian born pianist Yelena Eckemoff’s latest offering Forget-me-Not is a jazz and classically infused exploration of beauty, textures and improvisational genius. The interactive chemistry between Yelena, bassist Mats Eilertsen, and drummer Marilyn Mazur is clear from the first lustrous passages. Eckemoff’s compositions offer 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. With a vast discography, that includes some of the leading figures in jazz today, Eckemoff has clearly established herself as a top ranking composer. The question is no longer whether she can be considered in the ranks of top composers; it is now how far her musical journey will take her. I was fortunate enough to have a chance to interview this significant composer and delve into some of her processes and background.

Bill Milkowski for Jazz Times

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There’s a rare delicacy to this luminous, ECM-ish piano-trio outing that features the remarkably sensitive rhythm duo of bassist Darek Oles and drummer Peter Erskine. All the material here was composed by the prolific, classically trained Moscow native Yelena Eckemoff, who characteristically prefers tinkling arpeggios to all-out swing and tends toward the new-agey end of the spectrum. Among the real gems are “Promise,” “A Smile,” the sparse “Isolated” and poignant “Mama,” all underscored by Oles’ graceful, woody tones and Erskine’s painterly approach to the kit. Drum fans will revel in Erskine’s choices throughout this keenly interactive offering.

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Bill Milkowski for Jazz Times

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Upon listening to Grass Catching the Wind ’s spacious, opening track, “Anticipation of Spring,” you might be tempted to categorize Yelena Eckemoff as Russia’s answer to George Winston. But then the sensitive Danish rhythm tandem of bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Morten Lund enters the picture to provide some conversational push-and-pull beneath all that infernal tinkling. Advocates claim Eckemoff is creating a new genre—classical world improv. (I prefer to think of it as doily jazz.) The trio does generate some nice interaction on “Rain Streams” and “Somebody Likes Jogging,” the pensive title track and the ECM-ish “Summer Heat,” the classically flavored “Overcast” and “Sonnet for the Flowers,” but a little of this hyper-delicate stuff goes a long way.

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