Igor Butman

Igor Butman Mikhailovich (Russian Игорь Михайлович Бутман, born October 27, 1961 in Leningrad ) is a Russian jazz saxophonist ( alto, tenor and soprano saxophone), big band leader and composer.

Igor Butmans father was an engineer and amateur drummer; his younger brother Oleg became a percussionist. He studied from 1975 to 1980 at the Mussorgsky - Muskschule clarinet and saxophone; his teacher was Gennady Golstein, who introduced him to jazz radio broadcasts of Voice of America. From 1979 to 1981 he played with David Goloshchekin, 1982/83 with Oleg Lundstrem; 1984 to 1987 he was a member of the Allegro Quartet; In addition, he contributed to recordings by Sergei Kuryokhin. In 1983 under his own name first album on the Melodiya label.

In 1987 he went to the United States to study until 1989 at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he established numerous contacts. There he joined inter alia, also with Gary Burton and worked with his own bands in the Regatta Bar, including with Rachel Z and Wolfgang Muthspiel. He also starred in the Billy Taylor Quartet, the Walter Davis Jr. Quartet and the Monty Alexander Quintet. In the late 1980s he has also performed with Pat Metheny and Grover Washington Jr.. In 1992 he returned for a tour to Russia and in Moscow, working with Eddie Gomez. Back in New York, he took his first solo album in 1993 with his own compositions in the United States, Falling Out, in which Eddie Gomez, Lyle Mays and Marvin Smitty Smith participated. He played in 1993, Joe Locke and then went in 1994 with the Lionel Hampton band on tour in Europe. With Nick Levinowky it came in 1995 to a revival of the Allegro Quartet. In the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the war's end he played Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin in Moscow.

In the following years he frequently traveled between Moscow and New York, among others worked with Gary Burton, Eddie Gomez, Lenny White, John Abercrombie. 1997, his album was released in nostalgia. In 1998, he appeared on the album Method to the Madness of Musikerkollaborative New York Jazz Guerrilla with Torsten de Winkel with; Wynton Marsalis took him as a guest soloist in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. The following year, he worked with a big band lineup with Russian musicians, in which also participated Marsalis as guest soloist; other guests were Dee Dee Bridgewater, George Benson, Gino Vanelli, Joe Lovano, Billy Cobham, The New York Voices, and Randy Brecker. In 2003 there was in the Jazz at Lincoln Center for the cooperation of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Igor Butman Big Band. In 2006, Butman on a new album, which is based thematically on old Soviet cartoons and movies; had an adverse effect Chick Corea, John Patitucci, Randy Brecker, Stefon Harris and Jack DeJohnette with. He also worked with Daniel Kramer.

He is a very go-getting organizer in the Moscow jazz scene with many contacts in the most diverse areas of Russian society. He organized the Triumph of Jazz Festival in Moscow, held since 2000. He also leads the leading Moscow jazz club Le Club.

Swell

• Bielefeld catalog 1988 & 2002
• Richard Cook & Brian Morton: The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, 8th Edition, London, Penguin, 2006 ISBN 0-141-02327-9