Valery Ponomarev

The first main Russian jazz musician to create an impression in america, Valery Ponomarev has always had a stylish tone, a swinging style, and a solid fascination with keeping the hard bop legacy of Clifford Dark brown alive. He performed as regularly as you possibly can within the Soviet Union, documenting for the Melodiya label and showing up at jazz celebrations until defecting in 1973. Four years afterwards, he joined Artwork Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, an ideal wall socket for his design, from 1977-1980; he documented nine albums with Blakey for such brands as Roulette, Timeless, and Concord. Ponomarev provides since freelanced, generally leading his very own quintets and documenting extensively for Tank.