For the past six years, Igor Butman and Larisa Dolina have collaborated to produce "Carnival of Jazz", a spectacular event no true jazz lover would want to miss. "Carnival of Jazz 2" comes to Manhattan on June 15 and 17, as part of the 6th Annual Russian Heritage Festival, giving New Yorkers a unique chance to see Russia's brightest and most enduring jazz stars perform. Details...

Russian sax man Igor Butman uses music from Russian cartoons and movies as the inspiration for Magic Land, where he has the support of a Hall of Fame band—Randy Brecker (trumpet), Stefon Harris (vibes), Chick Corea (piano), John Patitucci (bass) and drummer Jack DeJohnette, who doubles as producer. Details...

Walk down a street in Moscow and you'll see the Russian sax player Igor Butman on billboards promoting his latest record. Here in the U.S., though, he's lucky if his name isn't mispronounced (it's BOOT-mun). Details...

At Igor Butman's early set Wednesday at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, the great St. Petersburg-born tenor saxophonist played only one brief lick that seemed, at least to Western ears, remotely Russian: This was the main phrase from "Peter and the Wolf" (and, to be fair, the Prokofiev melody has also been recorded by American jazzmen such as Benny Goodman and Jimmy Smith). Otherwise, Comrade Butman's playing only sounded Russian in the sense of his virtuosity: He plays the tenor like one of those Borodin bassos who displays an entire range beyond most opera singers. Mr. Butman plays so much tenor that, at times, you're almost afraid he's going to run out of horn. Details...

If it has been Randy Brecker's misfortune to be overshadowed for most of his career by his brother Michael, one of the most admired tenor saxophonists, he's never seemed to mind that much. Perhaps that's because he's in good company' there's Stanley Turren-tine and his trumpeter brother Tommy, or Nat Adderley, the cornet-playing sibling of Cannonball. Details...

As an admirer of big bands all over the world, I’ve waited years to hear a well-endowed, swinging ensemble from Russia, and here at last it is, charging boldly into the labyrinthine Eternal Triangle behind its charismatic leader, tenor saxophonist Igor Butman. Butman is a jazz superstar in his native country, and his band is so highly regarded that it was invited by none other than Wynton Marsalis to share the stage with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra to open the JALC concert season in September ‘03. Butman’s ensemble more than held its ground that evening, and now, more than three years onward, comes its debut recording, and to note that it affirms the band’s prowess would be understating the case. Details...

The American trumpeter Randy Brecker oozes the urbane professionalism of a touring jazz musician in demand for studio work. His 40-year career spans Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen, headlining jazz- fusion with Funkadelic and his own Brecker Brothers band, and a plethora of jazz greats. He made his first appearance at Ronnie Scott’s with the pianist Horace Silver’s quintet in 1968, having just left the jazz-rock supergroup Blood, Sweat and Tears to get more musical freedom. Details...

The promise of a dialogue between jazz and classical music has been a persistent lure over the years. It's a preoccupation that turns experts into interlopers, compelling them to speak in a borrowed tongue. Crossover Concerto, an event held on Wednesday night at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, illuminated that challenge, along with the lofty goal that inspired it. In tone as well as substance, the concert suggested cultural exchange. Details...

Jazz suggests a spectrum of artistic dispositions, and musicians all over the world take from it whatever suits their own temperaments. Some choose vulnerability. Some choose concentration. Some choose restlessness. And some, like the Russian saxophonist Igor Butman, choose invincibility.
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It was at a league ice-hockey game on Nov. 11, 1994, that Igor Butman added another exciting chapter to his life story. The other team, frustrated by Butman's skill and speed, tried to slow him down illegally, slashing his hands with a stick. Butman turned and faced his attacker, and soon he was rolling around on the ice with his adversary. It was a normal hockey tussle until the Bulldog, living up to his teams' name, yanked on the ponytail that flowed out the back of Butman's helmet. Punches followed and both players were ejected, but not before Butman dominated the game with two goals, including the game winner. Details...

Speaking of detente, Rose Theater on Wednesday night played host to visitors from even farther away than L.A. This was "Crossover Concerto," a concert starring two ensembles from Moscow. Details...

Butman is a musician of a God-given talent. (Izvestia Daily)

Igor Butman is the jazz bridge between Moscow and New York. (Ogonyok Weekly)

Igor Butman is the trademark of jazz. (Nizhegorodsky Rabochi Daily)

Butman is the coffee heater of local jazz scene. Everything around him is moving, boiling and transferring from the liquid state to bright, volatile and internationally eventful. (Evening Moscow)

During the recent years, Igor Butman became the catalyst of Russian jazz scene. (Evening Moscow)

Igor Butman alone was able to do something that neither old unions nor new associations weren't able to do, namely: to establish the ongoing creative exchange between Moscow and New York jazz scene. (Kommersant Daily)

Igor Butman is a brilliant virtuoso and a deep artist at the same time. The lyricism of Butman's saxophone shows in a soft romantic ballad, when you think that you hear not a saxophone, but an excited human voice. His balladry, the singing vocal-likeness of his instrument draws the attention of leading jazz critics. (Kultura Weekly)

Igor Butman is something to be reckoned with on Russian jazz scene. At least because he was the first to make jazz music a serious business matter. People know his face, which rarely happens to the artists in this genre. (Kultura Weekly)

...a trendy sax player and a trendy TV host... (Kommersant Daily)

The main feature of maestro's creative personality is the ability to communicate, to grab the audience's attention from the first bars on and never let it go. While he improvises he is able to convert something into its opposite, with ease and mastery. (Kommersant Daily)

Butman's way to play is beautiful and unique as the life itself. (Vesti Daily)

One should note that energy, sexuality and philosophy fuse together inside Butman's saxophone like no other's. (Moskovski Komsomolets Daily)

Butman's playing is characterized by powerful expressiveness, his energy literally flows over the rim. (New Siberia Daily)

His saxophone passages make you believe that there is no boundaries of what a human can do. (Evening Volgograd)

Igor Butman is an outstanding composer who combines the mastery in modern means of creative expression in jazz, the rare sense of melody and, of course, the obvious influence of his Russian musical roots. (Moskovski Komsomolets Daily)

Igor Butman, whose mere presence could make any jazz show and whose energy could infect many creative souls, stepped on the stage and proved that the celebration of the spirit is what he preached and would continue to preach all his life. His thick performance convinced that there was a real creative soul in front of us, somebody who lived an entire life in a single piece of music. (Sochi Newspaper)

Butman keeps experimenting: the model [of improvisation] that he uses changes from one performance to another. (Kultura Weekly)

Butman destroyed the myth of jazz being elitist music, not appealing to the masses. (New Siberia Daily)