Yelena Eckemoff

Composer and pianist Yelena Eckemoff's Colors (L&H Production, 2019) was a duet with drummer Manu Katche, a unique instrumentation in her ever-growing list of works.

Pianist Yelena Eckemoff's backstory doesn't suggest the potential for a rise to the category of top level jazz pianist. But here she is, after emigrating to the U.S. from Russia with her husband—leaving her children (temporarily) and everything else (permanently) behind in 1991 to escape repression and to start a new life. Classically trained in her homeland, Eckemoff came to jazz relatively late. With persistence, talent, ambition, audacity and a seemingly unshakable optimism, she has navigated her way to the top echelon of the jazz world and created a substantial discography of very good to excellent recordings, collaborating with the cream of rhythm section cohorts–-bassists Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen, drummers Peter Erskine and Billy Hart.

Colors reflect not only the Russian-born pianist and composer's creative drive, but also her seemingly limitless imagination. Each of the 14 colors she interprets represents a different stage in life, with the songs presented chronologically.

Pianist-composer Yelena Eckemoff’s body of elaborate, ambitious jazz concept albums reaches a new virtuosic summit with "Lonely Man and His Fish," to be released April 28. A double-album set, the album is also a long-form parable, a story of deep affection between a human and his beloved pet. An all-star lineup—cornetist Kirk Knuffke, flutist Masaru Koga, bassist Ben Street, and drummer Eric Harland—helps Eckemoff breathe life into the tale.

Russian-born, North Carolina-based composer Yelena Eckemoff consistently releases material that is deeply thought provoking and reflective. This time out, she leads a team with all stars Billy Hart, Ben Street and for added exoticism, violinist Mark Feldman through a collection of originals. Delicately delivered strong material. The songs are impressionistic and filled with water colors of sound.

It takes a discerning eye, or in this case ear, to envision the desert as more than a vast, arid wasteland. Pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff succeeds in musically portraying many of this daunting environment’s mysteries and its boundless allure on her new recording, "Desert", to be released May 4 on her imprint L&H Production. The quartet outing, the latest in the impressive series of concept albums at the core of the prolific Russian-born, North Carolina-based keyboard virtuoso’s catalog, reunites her with Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen and internationally acclaimed drummer Peter Erskine and features Oregon co-founder Paul McCandless on oboe, English horn, soprano saxophone, and bass clarinet.

Pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff defines radiance as "a state of happiness or confidence when everything around you is shining". On her 2014's album, "A Touch of Radiance", she explores that idea from 10 different perspectives, drawing rich inspiration from memories, emotions, and dreams, and the inner world where all three intersect. Her quintet here's Mark Turner, Joe Locke, George Mraz & Billy Hart. These four gifted artists respond gorgeously to Eckemoff's music, wringing bold colors and deep feeling from pieces that are both airy and intricate.

She may rarely perform live in this context, but Yelena Eckemoff has managed to build, over just seven years and a mammoth eleven releases—including her second release of 2017, In the Shadow of a Cloud—a loyal and growing following in the jazz world. It's all the more remarkable for a multi-talented expat Russian pianist who began life in the classical world, and only entered the jazz world in 2010 with Cold Sun. But there's even more to marvel at when it comes to Eckemoff, who relocated to the USA a little over a quarter century ago. Consider her accomplishments over the past seven years: she has released the entire body of jazz work on her own L&H Productions imprint, with only the help of publicists to help get the word out; has produced all of her recordings; and, since 2014's A Touch of Radiance, also contributed original paintings, as well as corresponding poetry to each composition.

I am a melodist, but the melodies that come from the words I hear in the Psalms, I think they are the best melodies I create. And I think it's because there's a power in those words. . . . You can feel the power that God channels through that music. - Yelena EckemoffPianist-composer Yelena Eckemoff adds to her already impressive corpus of settings for the Psalms. The album is a new installment in a long-term musical project that began with 2018s Better Than Gold and Silver, and once again teams Eckemoff with that albums trumpeter Ralph Alessi and bassist Drew Gress, along with guitarist Adam Rogers and drummer Nasheet Waits.