Search - Oleg Kireyev/Keith Javors :: Rhyme & Reason

Inarhyme Records is pleased to announce the April 13, 2010 release of Rhyme & Reason, the extraordinary new CD featuring Russian saxophone player Oleg Kireyev and American pianist Keith Javors along with bassist Boris Kozlov (Charles Mingus Big Band) and drummer E. J. Strickland (Ravi Coltrane Band). In September 2008, after a debut performance at the legendary Blues Alley in Washington D.C., Oleg and Keith formed a partnership that quickly inspired two American and two European tours. In addition to performances at numerous East Coast venues including Chris Jazz Café in Philadelphia and the Iridium in New York, their project was successfully presented at the International House of Music, one of the premiere concert venues in Russia. Kireyev and Javors also headlined the Jazz Festival in the historic Russian city of Yaroslavl as well as performing in countless towns in Poland. Even though their musical and symbiotic relationship has been brief in time, it has been deep in spirit. This all-original music is played by a fully integrated, forward thinking, democratic collective. Balance and an even-keeled approach are the norm here. While Kireyev's clean and lean tenor sax is the lead instrument on the cool Getz-like mainstream themes of the title selection and Sierra Nicole's Bossa, he shows versatility stretching out in free form for the first half of Springtime, while at other times recalling the more exploratory side of Joe Henderson. Generally, parts are proportioned equally between the co-leaders and their formidable, well-heeled band mates, and this is particularly true for extended cuts like the bluesy What Is Love and hip, funky Chinatown. Kozlov and Strickland have played on several potent landmark sessions during their careers, and here they truly work together as one. Then there's Keith Javors, whose recent critically-acclaimed projects have included Coming Together (a tribute to the late composer Brendan Romaneck) and the American Music Project s On the Bright Side. You hear him in full bloom during the beautiful trio track Happenstance, with a personal voice of depth, substance and wit. Javors can expertly comp on chords, play dazzling arpeggiated lines, or flawlessly mesh with Kireyev on silvery unison melodies that refract in mirror-like reflections of prismatic color. As Scott Yanow says in his liner notes, it s a memorable modern mainstream jazz set... the type of forward-looking recording that grows in interest with each listen and is a perfect example of 21st century jazz.