I have to give full credit to legendary multi-instrumentalist Arkady Shilkloper for making mention of Yury Markin’s album on his Facebook feed on which he appears.  I’m familiar with how solid the Russian jazz/experimental record label Fancy Music is, and this latest release does not disappoint.

From the label’s Bandcamp site:

“Yury Markin is one of the leading Russian composers and jazz pianists, a student of the famous composer Rodion Shchedrin. The double album, coming out in the year of the 75th anniversary of the master, is truly historic. It presents large pieces, displaying the work of Yury Markin in a style built at the intersection of classical music and jazz. Yury Markin is among the domestic giants of jazz composers such as Yury Chugunov and Herman Lukyanov. All of the above operate in line with their own systems, but in spite of the polarity of their creative views, these three outstanding personalities of Russian jazz give a new artistic value, in which Markin’s symphonic principles take an overriding place, since there are no other examples of unique large-form jazz compositions in our country.”

 
The balance between jazz and classical music make this release such a joy to listen to.