Evgeny Lebedev

The combination of piano and guitar is a tricky one, mostly because the instruments live in the same sonic register. If care isn't taken, both are lost in a murky mix. If you want to look back at the possibilities of such a duo done right, check out the Bill Evans/Jim Hall records Undercurrent and Intermodulation.

In a more modern context (read: now!) there is pianist/composer Evgeny Lebedev. On this track, Lebedev pairs with guitarist Jeff Miles to provide a nice example of subtle improvisation in the duo format. The composition begins with a descending, single-note guitar line, piano chords filling out the space. The main theme is then played in a kind of hybrid chord solo with the guitar playing the melody and the piano staying in the left hand. As time progresses, Lebedev and Miles try out as many permutations as possible — traditional guitar comping with piano on lead, piano comping with guitar lead, piano lead with guitar chord volume pedal tricks, traded fours, interleaved passages. That list makes it sound chaotic yet the results are anything but. I have to say it always knocks me out when one musician begins an idea that the next player extends, and you'll find a lot of that on this song.

"I Hear A Rhapsody" has been recorded by many jazz greats (including Evans and Hall on Undercurrent), but Evgeny Lebedev manages to put his own twist on it. It feels fresh again.

Reviewer: Mark Saleski - jazz.com

On the piano and musical continuum, you couldn't get much farther away from boogie woogie and stride than Evgeny Lebedev, a Russian-born recent Berklee graduate. The post-modern, polymetric, high intensity arrangements of his compositions were like a refined, rarefied acoustic Meshugah. Lebedev's comfort with complex rhythmic patterns is no wonder since they are a key element in Eastern European music.

The impressionistic opening of "Russian Dance" (on which I thought I heard recorded vocal tracks) meandered from 11/4 to 5/4 to 3/4 and back to the combination of figures of 6 and 5 as the band added heft and textures. When they played "Footprints," you could hear it in 3/4 or 4/4, so integrated was the feel of triplets on four.

Lebedev, an accomplished pianist, is a highly lyrical, astute player with sweet edges, but the trio, an integrated, communicative unit supported by the taut, fierce drumming of Lee Fish, pushed into more hard-driving grooves for this set. "Fairy Tale" started with a rubato bass solo, and as Haggai Cohen Milo shaped and heightened it, the piano entered with a chromatic run that set the move towards a fierce solo worthy of the Brothers Grimm. The mood ranged from the meditative introduction of "In Her Eyes" over light pedal point to the Jarrettesque solo on "From East to West" The bass had an assertive role, setting up the embellished rolling groove to the Shorter tune and plugging into the development of a hard-swinging solo over the changes. Later, Milo added fat, feathery guitaristic bass lines and strummed chords to a Bulgarian-inspired tune.

Lebedev has matured a lot in just one year; his music has deeper conviction His upcoming CD, From East to West, will feature Terri Lyne Carrington.


http://www.jazz.com/jazz-blog/2009/9/10/Evgeny-Lebedev-Tanglewood09 - jazz.com

Unlike Manami, Russian-born Evgeny Lebedev plays in the middle to lower registers of the instrument. He’s a larger, slower-moving person, but he’s equally skilled a musician. Tinges of Eastern Europe are obvious in his playing at times, but so is Keith Jarrett. Lebedev is definitely classically trained: you could hear it in his left-hand motifs and in the counterpoint of a fugue-like introduction to “If I Should Lose You,” which opened the set. Again, in contrast to Manami, who had a loose me-and-my-friends approach to the presentation, Lebedev and his sidemen emerged from the green room more formally. In Lebedev’s “Russian Dance,” soft lyricism and interwoven lines build almost to a gallop. Moving the solo into a sustained groove, Lebedev and the band stayed there, with drum rolls by Lee Fish, (drummer for Collage, tenor player Mike Tucker’s debut album) and very fast bass lines by Hynwoo Man. While there was some funk, the arrangements were essentially straight ahead. The band supported Oleg Ostopchuk’s fluid tenor solos well, although the mix did drown him out a little. For his encore, Lebedev chose “Peace,” which he opened solo piano. The tenor added bluesy overtones to this jazz ballad, then the piano put in heavy left-hand arpeggios as underpinning. It was a fitting message with which to end the evening. - www.jazz.com