Criss Cross Jazz 1334 CD

Yakov Okun

New York Encounter

Available: February 15, 2011

A major force in Russian Jazz since the mid ‘90s, pianist Yakov Okun, finally places himself on the international stage with his Criss Cross debut, a trio date with world-class bass-drum team Ben Street and Billy Drummond, on which he mixes challenging original material with strong arrangements and less traveled Songbook repertoire and tunes by Sonny Rollins and Fats Waller.

At 38, Okun is an individualistic voice, an important player, able in his improvisations to refract an entire timeline of jazz vocabulary in a cogent, compositional manner.

Yakov Okun
Barcode 8 712474 133420
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1. Pent-Up Chaos (Sonny Rollins / Yakov Okun)  5:53
2. Kind Bug (Antonio Spadavecchia)  8:23
3. Spillikins (Yakov Okun)  6:05
4. Jitterbug Waltz (Fats Waller)  7:31
5. Eric Dolphy's Tomb (Yakov Okun)  6:34
6. Falling In Love Again (Frederick Hollander / Sammy Lerner)  5:14
7. Plain Jane (Sonny Rollins)  6:32
8. Giant Steps (John Coltrane)  5:38
9. Heaven (Duke Ellington)  5:10

Total Time: 57:04
Recorded November 11, 2010 in Brooklyn, NY, USA
Engineer: Joe Marciano & Max Bolleman (mixing) & The Masters (mastering)
Producer: Gerry Teekens