New York Jazz Record

Dan Bilawsky for New York Jazz Record

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Beyond her obvious skills – sophisticated pianist, composer, writer and painter – Yelena Eckemoff’s greatest strength may be an ability to draw on life’s surroundings to guide and enrich the aural experience. This prolific artist’s work is constantly nurtured by environment – hers and ours, collectively – and she’s always uncovering narratives hidden within. One need only look at Eckemoff’s discography to glean that information. She captured the temperature of a persistent winter in a trio with  bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Peter Erskine on 2010’s ‘Cold Sun’; harnessed the light in emotion with help from tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, vibraphonist Joe Locke, bassist George Mraz and drummer Billy Hart during 2014’s ‘A Touch of Radiance’; explored the divine beauty of shores and tides in the company of saxophonist Tore Brunborg, bassist Arild Andersen and drummer Jon Christensen on 2015’s ‘Everblue’; and defined life in varied shades with drummer Manu Katche through 2019’s ‘Colors’. That list barely scratches the surface considering that Eckemoff  delivered 15 releases between 2010 and 2020, but it clearly makes the point.

So too does this evocative and absorbing double-album. Reuniting with vibraphonist Panu Savolainen, bassist Antti Lotjonen and drummer Olavi Louhivuori, who assisted the pianist in making musical sense of scents on 2017’s ‘Blooming Tall Phlox’, and adding two more notable Finns-saxophonist Jukka Perko and guitarist / multi-instrumentalist Jarmo Saari – Eckemoff sets off to tell the tale of a wildflower’s life and times. The perennial, given the fitting name Columbine, starts out as a seed seeking full life. Eckemoff and company conjure the warm glow of its growth in moving from mellow and curious environs to brighter atmospheres on the “In the Ground” opener. At the other end of the program, with seedlings at the aged protagonist’s side, the music dances to the pulse of life in “Baby Columbines”. Between those points, there’s much to admire in exchanges, improvisations and composed expressions. “Germination” peaks out in different directions, with sprigs represented in jangles and angles. “Rain” falls gently, early, in simple motivic play and development. “Drought” sounds to arid climates and, later, reflection. And “Buds and Flowers” presents as a fantastical gardenscape.

This music, rich in representation, is magical and Eckemoff and company blossom right along with it.

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THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD MARCH 2021

Dan Bilawsky for New York Jazz Record

Tyran Grillo for New York Jazz Record

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Since 2006, pianist Yelena Eckemoff has been stirring a chamber jazz cocktail two parts through-composed for each one improvised. With Leaving Everything Behind, she has perfected it. Eckemoff’s road to this point has been paved with classical roots, but has attracted increasingly heavier hitters of jazz to her entourage. Her friendship with bassist Arild Andersen, for one, led to their “Lions” trio with drummer Billy Hart. The latter’s approach to color makes for an easy corollary to Eckemoff’s painterly ways and his retention this time around is felt alongside two new collaborators: violinist Mark Feldman and bassist Ben Street.

Though Eckemoff has always been a self-aware musician, Leaving Everything Behind finds her in an especially conceptual mode. She repurposes earlier compositions among the fresh to tell the story of a young woman fleeing Soviet Russia and the ways in which music has constructed bridges to the places she put behind her. Whether comping with confidence in “Mushroom Rain” or drawing with light in “Hope Lives Eternal,” she moves around her bandmates by means of a genuinely expressive outreach.

The Eckemoff-Hart nexus gives off its broadest spectrum in the more programmatic pieces. Between the raindrop impressions of the “Prologue” to warmth of closer “A Date in Paradise,” pianist and drummer dispel an overcast sky until only sunshine remains. Titles such as “Spots of Light” and “Ocean of Pines” further indicate that silver linings reign supreme.

The balance of distinctly classical arrangements and jazzier change-ups yields affirmative soloing, most effectively through Feldman’s clear and present note craft, as in the evocative “Coffee and Thunderstorm,” a quintessential embodiment of what unites Eckemoff’s chosen genres: namely, the ability to expand fleeting moments into poetry. Other highlights in this regard—all the more so, ironically enough, for being so darkly ponderous—include the panoramic “Love Train” and, above all, the simpatico title track.

This set of variations on a theme of memory is Eckemoff’s finest to date and may at last put her on a map where she has been largely ignored.

Tom Greenland for New York Jazz Record

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Pianist Yelena Eckemoff is a major jazz talent yet to receive the critical attention she deserves. Soviet-born, trained in one of the country’s finest conservatory, she took time off from music to raise her family and then fled the USSR with her husband, finally returning to music in midlife with formidable technique and ample life experiences to convey. “A Touch of Radiance is her 14th release of what she calls “original instrumental music,” an inapt label for her genre-defying style, which combines the harmonic textures and compositional rigor of European classical music with the indeterminacy of jazz. Joined by the stellar team of Mark Turner (tenor sax), Joe Locke (vibes), George Mraz (bass) and Billy Hart (drums), Eckemoff leads her group through a moody suite of songs, many with compelling melodies performed at floating tempos over arrangements that deemphasize solo statements in favor of group interchange. Locke’s vibraphone, for example, often plays intertwining minimalist loops and Eckemoff ‘s accompaniments contain many ideas that could stand on their own. Turner, a powerful voice in his own right, is heard to great effect on cuts like “Pep,” “Reconciliation” (one of Eckemoff’s most memorable compositions) and “Radiance,” where, confined to shorter statements that complement t the song structures, he nevertheless makes his presence felt.

Eckemoff gave an album release show last month at Jazz Standard supported by a revamped quartet: Mraz, Donny McCaslin taking over tenor sax duties and Eric McPherson sitting in on drums. Prominently displayed center-stage was Eckemoff’s lurid painting of a sunset that graces the album cover. The set featured seven of the album’s ten tracks, sounding a bit more like a blowing session than the formal atmosphere of the recording. Live, Eckemoff showed herself to be an imaginative if somewhat introverted soloist.  Like Turner, McCaslin is a powerful  stylist, taking consistently strong solos that invariably  evoked  crowd responses, especially on “Pep” and “Imagination”, though other  times the audience was more subdued, lulled perhaps by the ebb and flow of  Eckemoff’s compositions.

Tom Greenland for New York Jazz Record

Tom Greenland for New York Jazz Record

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Raised in Moscow, Yelena Eckemoff received extensive training as a classical concert pianist before fleeing the Soviet Union for the US. Twenty years later, she has self-released a slew of jazz ailed classical efforts, most recently Glass Son, a song cycle celebrating the change of season from Winter to Spring. Supported by bassist Arild Andersen and drummer Peter Erskine, the trio’s dynamic is highly interactive. Eckemoff’s restrained romanticism and gracefully unpredictable compositions leave plenty of space for Andersen’s assertive, at times overpowering, bass and Erskine’s remarkably understated drums. Poised on gentle dissonances, the hypnotic music soothes even as it animates.

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