Russia’s most popular jazz personality is Igor Butman. He is a saxophone virtuoso and bandleader as well as club owner, club owner, and television host. Igor Butman was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1961. He began playing the clarinet when he was 11. He entered the Rimsky Korsakov College for Music in 1976. He switched to the jazz saxophone during his second year. He was also taught by Gennady, the brilliant musician and teacher. Unofficial lessons were also taken from nightly Voice of America broadcasts of jazz from 11:15 p.m. to midnight. Igor Butman was a member of Oleg Lundstrem’s big band, the most successful in the USSR in 1983. He was invited by Nick Levinovsky next year to join “Allegro”, the most famous jazz group, and he played there for three years. Igor was a top tenor saxophonist in the Soviet Union. It is a country with over 300 million inhabitants. Igor Butman immigrated from Russia to America in 1987. He then went on to study Performance and Composition at Berklee College of Music, Massachusetts. Igor had already established a “fan group” with some of America’s most renowned Jazz musicians by the time he arrived in America. Igor was still in the U.S.S.R. and was invited to perform with American touring musicians such as Chick Corea (Dave Brubeck), Pat Metheny (Pat Metheny), Gary Burton, Louis Bellson, Grover Washington Jr.), who “took Igor under his wing.” Igor was Grover’s special guest at concerts in Chautauqua (New York), the Berklee Center, Boston, and Great Woods Center, Mansfield, Massachusetts. Igor has performed with Grover’s band many times, including at New York City’s Blue Note. He appears on Grover Washington Jr.’s Columbia album Then.
