New York Encounter

A major force in Russian jazz since the mid '90's, 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.