Yakov Okun - New York Encounter

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 (P)
Ben Street (B)
Billy Drummond (D)
    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 Holllander)  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 by Joe Marciano