Must-Listen: Ukrainian Jazzmen in Action
Dennis Adu is a composer, arranger, educator, and one of the most in-demand trumpet players on the Ukraine jazz scene.
He was born in 1987 in Saltpond (Ghana). When he was two, his family moved to Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. He started playing the trumpet when he was seven, and at the age of eight, he was invited to the Alexander Gebel Orchestra. Adu won the “Do#Dж Junior” (The Best Trumpet Player), and further he became the winner in nominations “The Best Musician in Ukraine” and “The Best Arrangement of Jazz Standard.” Dennis participated in “Millau en Jazz” (France), “Fel du Sher” (France), “Jazz A Vienne” (France), and many others. He played with Frank Lacy, Gregory Porter, Curtis Fuller, Jim Rotondi, Roy and Ofer Assaf, Steve Slagle, Javon Jackson, Larry Willis, Quincy Davis, Dana Hall, Jason Brown, Jimmy Bosch, Mitch Froman, Pete Nater Frankie Vasquez, Wayne Escoffery, Michael Dease, Mambo Legends Orchestra, Seamus Blake, John Hollenbeck, and other.
He leads the Quintet, Sextet, Septet, and Big Band. In 2017 Dennis Adu released his debut album Influences. The new album Sunlight Above the Sky was released in 2021.
Press-photo
Konstantin was born in Kharkiv, and got education at College of Music & University Of Arts (Conservatory). In 2003 moved to Kiev, where started playing with local jazz musicians in a variety of bands, as well teaching at Kiev Institute Of Music. At that time he travelled a lot, also working in Europe & USA. Last few years were the busiest in Konstantin’s career. His touring geography is vast: France, Germany, Spain, Italy, UK, Poland, Baltic Countries, Slovakia, Japan, etc. During the tour around USA he performed in United Nations Headquarter and in the White House.
For the time being Konstantin Ionenko is one of the most inspired and creative young artists on Ukrainian jazz scene. He is a virtuoso musician as well as deep thinking composer, who is deeply appreciated by the audience, jazz critics and fellow jazz musicians.His the latest album "Noema" was included in the list of the best releases of 2016 on the "All About Jazz" platform.
“Konstantin is bassist and composer with rened and world-class music!” Karl Ackermann, New York Jazz Record
“Very sensuous music, with more than enough of the intellect to engage the mind.” Budd Kopman, All About Jazz
Photo: America House
Pokaz Trio represents a new generation of instrumental music of Ukraine: its members combine jazz, classical, and traditional Ukrainian music with electronica. There is a special narrative charm in the trio’s music, where each track is designed to be a story, and the listener fulfils the role of a co-author. Their performances are designed to be an abstract journey through time and space. Their premiere album, Kintsugi, was released on the Norwegian label Losen Records and received excellent reviews from critics worldwide.
They have performed at the following Ukrainian festivals: Odesa Jazz Festival (2016, 2017), Nimi Nochi (2016, 2017, 2019), Koktebel Jazz Fest (2017), Jazz Bez (2018), Leopolis Jazz Festival (2019), Am I Jazz (2019). They have also played concerts in Odesa, Kyiv and Lviv. International performances and experience: Klaipeda Castle Jazz, Lithuania (2018), concerts in Palace of Culture and Club Matisse, Spain (2018), Outono Em Jazz Festival, Casa da Musicà, Portugal (2019), Lotos Jazz Festival, Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa, Poland (2019).
Photo: Pokaz Trio's Facebook
Yakiv Tsvietinskyi is one of the prominent modern voices in the European jazz scene. Based in Lviv, Ukraine, Yakiv wears many hats as a jazz trumpeter, band leader, composer, and educator. His background in classical and modernist music allows him to craft developed, complex textures while incorporating the freedom and improvisational elements of jazz music.
He was a recipient of the Yamaha Gulf FZE Trumpet Scholarship in 2015, and graduating from Dnipro Academy of Music in 2016, he received the Fulbright grant for education at Western Michigan University in America, where he received a two year master’s degree in jazz performance. There, he was mentored by acclaimed musicians Scott Cowan, Andrew Rathbun and Keith Hall. Tsvietinskyi also was awarded educational opportunities through Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead, hosted by Jason Moran at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, and was a recipient of two DownBeat Student Music Awards in 2017 and 2018.
Since 2018, Yakiv has reformed the jazz education program at the M. Glinka Academy of Music in Dnipro, released his record, Minimalist, debuted new music at the Am I Jazz? Festival, and was accepted into the Focusyear program led by Wolfgan Muthspiel in Basel, Switzerland. He colaborated with Rosenwinkel, Jorge Rossy, David Virelles, Malcolm Braff, Lionel Loueke, Guillermo Klein, Ben van Gelder, Jeff Ballard, Django Bates, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Ingrid Jensen, Miguel Zenon, and Ambrose Akinmusire, who was Yakiv’s personal mentor.
Creator: Tatyana Shlapak
Born in 1984 in Ukraine, Dima Bondarev began playing the trumpet at the age of 9. He discovered his passion for Jazz after initially studying classical music as a child. Between 2008 and 2013, Dima was very active in his homeland taking part in major Jazz festivals and concert tours. He was a member of the famous Ukrainian Jazz bands Acoustic Quartet and Magnifika group. In 2011 and 2016, he was awarded the Polish Cultural Scholarship “Gaude Polonia” and took lessons in Warsaw and Wroclaw with Piotr Wojtasik and Robert Majewski.
Since 2013 Dima has been based in Berlin where he undertook both Bachelor and Master studies at the Jazz Institut Berlin (JIB) with Gerard Presencer, Tom Arthurs and Sebastian Studnitzky, as well as John Hollenbeck, Greg Cohen, Geoffrey De Masure, Julia Hulsmann, Tino Derado, Guilherme Castro and Javier Reyes. During his studying Dima was awarded with JIB-Jazz-Preis der Karl Hofer Gesellschaft (2015) and Deutschlandstipendium (2017). Shortly after his graduation as a Master of composition in 2020 Dima was granted the scholarship Elsa-Neumann Stipendium.
In 2021 he got a year Scholarship program from Jazzcampus Basel (CH) called Focusyear, where Dima improved his knowledge under his mentor Ambrose Akinmusire, and regularly performed with well-known jazz artists.
Dima has collaborated with Aaron Parks, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Larry Grenadier, Logan Richardson, Coung Vu, Kris Davis, Lionel Loueke, Jorge Rossy, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Elena Pinderhughes, Greg Cohen, Doug Weiss, Joey Baron, Conrad Herwig, Steve Turre, Nels Cline, Jim Black, NDR Big Band, Brussel Jazz Orchestra, Guillermo Klein, Josh Ginsburg, Wanja Slavin, Elias Stemeseder, Ingrid Laubrock, and many others. All while developing his own band, and recording his debut album I’m Wondering (Unit Records, 2017)
Both as a sideman and a band leader Dima took part in a number of major jazz festivals such as North Sea Jazz Festival (Netherland), Umbria Jazz Festival (Italy), Xjazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Fest (Germany), Jazz nad Odra (Poland), Jazz Bez, Leopolis Jazz Fest (Ukraine), Jazz à Montauban (France) and others.
Source: Dima Bondarev's personal website
Vadim Bessarab trio was created by pianist and composer Vadim Bessarab in 2020. For the last 2 years musicians have had numerous performances and released two albums: Differences (2020) and Approximation (2022). The music of the trio successfully combines academic expressiveness with ethnic sentiments and contemplation inherent in European jazz.
Vadim Bessarab piano
Maksym Kondratiev bass
Yakiv Taruntsov drums
“The atmosphere of the music fits into what could be considered the European piano trio approach, one of intimate and nuanced beauty— pastel paintings on a canvas of silence… very promising debut.”
All about Jazz by Dan McClenaghan
Creator: Mira Mukhina
Roksana Smirnova & Misha Kalinin Duo
Pianist Roksana Smirnova and guitarist Misha Kalinin have played many concerts together. Over the last five years they have been developing their duo. A combination of acoustic piano and electric guitar with effects creates a very special sound. They came together from different musical backgrounds, combining interesting elements to create a unique musical style.
Misha Kalinin takes guitar out of its traditional place. He brims over with ideas, creating something new at the field of guitar sound. Pianist Roksana Smirnova combines spontaneity of improvisation with a sense of form influenced by her background as a classical
Recently, Smirnova and Kalinin engaged in creating soundtacks for silent avant-garde films. The duo has already worked with films of such directors as Dziga Vertov, Mikhail Kaufman, Evgeny Deslav, Alberto Cavalcanti, Walter Ruttman, Joris Evans.
Creator: Liza Koval
Whether as a pianist, composer, improviser, soloist or bandleader, Vadym Neselovskyi creates music that is truly inspired and wholly unique. This explains why his work has been played by jazz greats, such as Randy Brecker, Antonio Sanchez, Julian Lage, and Gary Burton, as well as classical artists (such as Daniel Gauthier, whose recording of Neselovskyi’s San Felio won an ECHO Classical Award) and symphony orchestras in the United States (such as the Spokane Symphony, Lancaster Symphony) and Europe (New Philharmonic Westfalen, INSO Lviv Symphony).
Neselovskyi’s most recent release, Get Up and Go (Jazz Family/Neuklang), earned a rare 4.5/5-star review from DownBeat. The trio’s chemistry has only deepened since that time, through tours of the US, Europe, Asia and Mexico, well-received appearances at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Note in New York City, and live broadcasts on France’s Arte TV and Germany’s WDR. The trio returned to Germany in 2019 for a live concert on the SWR network.
In 2022, Neselovskiy released his solo album “ Odesa: A Musical Walk Through a Legendary City,” which leads listeners through his Odesa, from the history Neselovskiy learned, his personal recollections and observations, and his dreams.
Source: Vadym Neselovskiy's personal website
Nataliia Lebedieva has an experience in creating of various projects. As for the original music, it is contrasting in character with unexpected dramatic transitions and irregular time signatures. Besides it, she created experimental programs which are based on the works of J. S. Bach, Fr. Chopin, Ukrainian folk songs, etc. She uses a way of interaction of well-known themes and her own motives, reharmonization and forms reorganization.
In 2013 graduated from the R. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music, Department of Jazz Music. Teacher and accompanist at R. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy Of Music, Jazz Department. Pianist, band leader, composer, arranger. Stage band leader of the O'Keshkin Jazz Festival 2010-2014, member of the jury of the All-Ukrainian Performance Jazz Competition 2017-2020.
Participated in "Zaduszki Jazzowe" (Poland), EU Jazz Express (Hungary), Lotos Jazz Festival, (Poland), JazzNica (Slovakia), "Quests" (Poland), "Bach in Jazz" (Austria), Wien, Musikverein, UsTream, "JazzUA" (Argentina), Asu Jazz fest (Paraguay), "Puzzles of Eternity" (USA), EU Jazz Express (Hungary), Asu Jazz fest (Paraguay), "QUESTS", Leopolis Jazz Fest.
Creator: Oleksandr Kozachenko
Viktor Pavelko is a famous Ukrainian jazz saxophonist and composer. Participant of many jazz festivals in Europe and Ukraine, as well as member of projects as "DeepToneProject", "KyivBigBand", "DennisAduBigBand" and others. The best tenor saxophonist of 2009 according to "Do#Dj".
Viktor Pavelko – Tenor Saxophone
Olexander Malyshev – Piano
Kostiantyn Ionenko – bass
Pavlo Galytskyi – Drums
Creator: Oleg Panov
Kateryna Ziabluk is a pianist, vocalist and composer, as well as a journalist and writer on the media-platform Meloport. She writes and performs jazz, avant-garde, free jazz, neoclassical, electroacoustics and folk music. Ziabluk performs as a soloist and with other musicians in trios, quartets, quintets and so on. She has a strong engagement with Ukrainian folk melodies in her music, and spends a lot of time researching Ukrainian music, discovering old records, and interpreting Ukrainian literature in musical way. One of her recent projects was based on The Forest Song, a play by the Ukrainian poetess, Lesia Ukrainka, which has very traditional story arc and is full of fairy tale motifs. Due to her jazz education and improvisational approach, she can popularise canonical Ukrainian culture in a modern and comprehensible way.
Participated in final concerts at Cho-Jazz Workshop in (Poland), the Polish-Ukrainian collaborative group UkraPol Orchestra, Jazztopad Festival (Poland), concerts with Kraków Music Academy Big Band, Zadymka Jazzowa festival (Poland), Belin Jazz Fest (Germany).
Source: Kateryna Ziabluk's personal website
ShockolaD was founded in 2004 by Ukrainian jazz musicians Ihor Hnydyn and Anastasiia Lytvyniuk and its music speaks to the roots of Ukrainian identity in its unique, evocative sound, fusing the modern-day influences of jazz with traditional Ukrainian folk melodies. ShockolaD has collaborated with eclectic musicians from Ukraine and around the globe, performing to audiences in Ukraine, Europe, and the US. In addition to touring, ShockolaD is heavily involved in community work, organising workshops, running the jazz school JazzClub.Lviv, and teaching at their alma mater. Over the last sixteen years ShockolaD’s cultural impact has grown from establishing the first jazz club in Western Ukraine to creating a jazz and popular music department in Lviv Musical Academy and influencing the next generation of professionals.
Lytvyniuk and Hnydyn are the sole Ukrainian partners of Cho-Jazz (the oldest jazz workshop in Eastern Europe) and were awarded the Decoration of Honour Meritorious for Polish Culture in 2018, for their teaching contributions, masterclasses and concerts in Poland.
Participated in Starzy i Mlodzi, chili jazz v Krakowie (Poland), Art Machine (Lithuania), Nineteenth Festival of Ukrainian Culture (Poland), Amiens Jazz Festival (France), Ewropejski Stadion Kultury (Poland), UA/PL Alternative Music Meetings (Poland), Cho-Jazz (Poland), Voicingers (Poland), Jazz Bez (Poland), Ukrainian Summer (Poland).
Creator: Rostyslav Pavlyk
Laura Marti is a jazz, ethno and pop singer and composer and a proud Ukrainian with Armenian roots and a Brazilian heart. She is described by the Ukrainian music world as one of Ukraine's most versatile singers with a velvety voice. In 2017 she was awarded "Singer of the Year" by "ELLE Style Awards". In addition, she is nominated for "Project of the Year 2018 – Ukraine," nominated and took part in "The Voice Of The Country - 11". Current 2022 - Laura Marti won 4 weeks ago - the Polish prize - Grand PRIX - Ladies Jazz. As a jazz singer she has worked with numerous renowned international jazz musicians such as Bobby McFerrin, Lars Danielsson, Magnus Öström. These include jazz festivals: Leopolis Jazz Fest (Alfa Jazz Fest), Jazz nad Odrą, Lotos Jazz Fest, Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa, Jazz Bez, Bouquet Kyiv Stage.
Cooperates also in duo with Nataliia Lebedieva.
Creator: Vlada Panchuk
Tamara Lukasheva was born in Odesa to a Ukrainian family of musicians. Tamara's professional career began at the age of 15, when she was invited to perform as a soloist with U.Kuznecov, N.Lebedeva and A.Fantaev. Later, she moved to Germany to study at Cologne's conservatory for music and dance (Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln). There, she founded a quartet.
Among the awards Tamara Lukasheva Quartett received are the 1st prise at the 6th International Jazz Vocal Competition in Finsterwalder (Germany), “Young German Jazz Prize Osnabrück”, “Keep an Eye Jazz Awards Amsterdam”, New German Jazz Prize Mannheim 2017. As a soloist she collaborated with WDR Big Band, MAO (Modern Art Orchestra, Hungary) and the UdK Big Band, Odesa’s Symphony Orchestra, INSO Lviv - Internation Sympony Orchestra Lviv. Among other achievements, she is also a member to NICA Artist Development.
