Oleg Butman "Passion"

«Our album is a story of love and passion. We offer this music as a gift to all those who love, are loved, and dream about lovе,» - Oleg Butman and Natalya Smirnova say about their album «Passion» in an interview to «DownBeat» magazine.

The story of “Jazz Passion” project began in 2007, when Oleg and Natalya started writing music together. They came up with very passionate, joyous, and dynamic compositions which would bring out the deepest emotional associations in the listener; therefore the project was named “Jazz Passion”.

The idea behind the project was to bring to the audience a personal and unique approach to modern jazz, to demonstrate the combination of rhythmic power, melodic lyricism, virtuosic performance, as well as completeness and logic of thought.

Oleg and Natalia spent a year in search of musical partners for this group. “It’s very important to find musicians that are spiritually, temperamentally, and expressively close to you,” says Oleg, “the kind that will understand an appreciate your music and will be willing to bring to it something of their own.”

By the end of 2008, the project’s lineup was fully formed. The main duo was joined by Mark Gross on alto sax, Wayne Escoffery on tenor and soprano saxophones, and Essiet Essiet on double bass.

During this time the ensemble toured many cities in Russia, Europe, and America, as well as successfully performing at several festivals. The project has performed not only as a quartet, but also as a piano trio.

In January of 2009 the album “Passion” was recorded, containing ten original compositions, the titles of which are all conceptually uniform: “Night Steps,” “Road to Paradise,” “Passion,” “On the Edge,” “In the Morning,” “Walk,” “Inspiration,” “The History of Time,” “Waltz for Two,” and “Mood.” The CD was released in October of 2009 by “Butman Music” label in Russia and USA.

Oleg Butman – a Russian jazz star and a clearly “ring-a-bell” name in the enormous jazz world of New York – is a positively-energized drummer, composer and a band leader. Born in St.Petersburg (Russia), Oleg Butman started playing the drums at the age of 8. After successfully finishing the Musorgsky College of Music in St.Petersburg, Oleg moved to Moscow to perform not only with Russian musicians, but such outstanding visiting U.S. stars as Richie Cole, John Feddis, Billy Taylor, Grover Washington, and Pat Metheny. At the age of 23 Oleg becomes known as the best drummer, topping the Soviet Critics' Poll and having recorded several albums with famous Russian jazzmаn.

By the time Oleg arrived in the United States he already had friends among the US most respected jazz artists. While being a student at Berklee College of Music from 1990, he was invited to play with Billy Taylor Quartet and Monty Alexander Quintet. His teachers at Berklee were Bob Moses, Tommy Campball. Having graduated from Berklee, Oleg moved to New York, where he got invited at different times to play with Joe Lock, Eddie Gomez, Andy Lovern, Ron Afiff, Sam Yehel.

In 1998 Oleg toured most of Russia with "Four Brothers" project (feat, the Butman brothers and the Ivanov brothers). The sweepingly successful tour resulted in a new album recorded under the same title. In 1999 Oleg toured America with his own quartet. Starting from 2001 Oleg came to Russia more and more often performing with the famous piano player Larry Willis, guitarist Mark Witfield, and sax player Vincent Herring. In 2007 Oleg recorded the album called "KGB - Kramer, Goods, Butman" after a long tour of Russia featuring the Russian pianist Daniel Kramer and Richie Goods (USA) on bass. The tour was so successful that it was repeated in 2008.

In 2007 Oleg Butman started composing original contemporary jazz music in a tandem with a talented jazz piano player Natalie Smirnova to perform this music at jazz concerts and clubs all over Russia,USA and in Europe. The project got a name of “Jazz Passion” and from time to time also hosts such renowned US musicians as Mark Gross (alto sax), Wayne Escoffery (tenor sax), and Essiet Essiet (bass).

From November 2009 Oleg has been the official "drummer" of Yamaha company in Russia and has been successfully using Maple Custom drums set produced by Yamaha. Yamaha company is convinced that masterful performance of such talented drummer as Oleg Butman combined with unmistakable beauty of the drums sound could give another impulse to the development of Russian and universal jazz culture.