East North

There has always been an eclectic tinge, and a flair for the complex and wildly virtuosic in Russian jazz. This pleasing live set, recorded in 2005 at a festival in the northern Russian city of Archangelsk and only now released, is neither over-complex nor grimly virtuosic, but it’s certainly eclectic, in its mix of northern Russian folk song, modal jazz and, apparently, Azerbaijani mugam. Hence, I suppose, the CD’s title of East North (even though Azerbaijan is pretty much due south of Archangelsk). Leader Tim Dorofeyev’s droning, strummed guitar is prominent, complemented by Vladimir Turov’s spidery piano and imaginative multiple percussion, although vocalist Ekaterina Zorina does not always sound entirely comfortable. It’s jazz, so there is plenty of soloing, with loose extemporisations growing out of the unison modal riffs or surrounding and sometimes overwhelming quiet vocal melodies. The arrival of Sergey Kuznetsov and Oleg Kireev on sax, about halfway through, moves the music into more conventional European free-jazz territory, with the slow development of ‘Surskie Chastushki’ from a simple folk melody to splashes of piano and shrieking reeds succeeded by a thoughtful guitar solo, moving from drone to noise, and then a cheerful major chord providing the happiest combination of the various styles the group draws on.

The occasional lack of focus and the sense that the musicians are sometimes casting around for inspiration are no real drawback, given that this is a record of a live performance, and are more than compensated for by the high points when inspiration does strike.