Dmitry Baevsky

"Solidly mainstream yet boldly" - ALL ABOUT JAZZ

"There's nothing fragile about Baevsky's playing. His sound is deep and rich, with some of the heft associated with the tenor or pre-bop alto players and an irrepressible swing fueled by a wide range of ideas and improvising strategies. That extends to his repertoire, differing tempos and rhythms and even a rainbow of musical keys"  - GEORGE KANZLER, THE NEW YORK TIME JAZZ RECORD.

The only child of a writer and a translater, Dmitry Baevsky was born in St Petersburg, Russia. He started piano lessons at the age of six and discovered his passion and seriousness for music as a teenager when he picked up an alto saxophone. Although he was not surrounded by professional musicians, his family was closely connected to music. His great grand-father, Moisei Beregovsky, was one of the most famous and respected Jewish ethnomusicologists who spent his life gathering melodies and words of Yiddish folk songs, as well as Eastern European Jewish dance melodies (klezmer music).

In 1991, he entered the Mussorgsky College of Music in St-Petersburg where he studied with the brilliant Russian jazz saxophonist Gennady Goldstein for four years. Throughout the nineties, he appeared in many jazz venues and international festivals throughout Russia.

 Upon his arrival in New York at age 19, he was accepted into the Jazz Department at the New School University on a full scholarship. After finishing college, Baevsky remained busy working within the New York jazz community and has performed and/or recorded with musicians such as Benny Green, Peter Washington, Willie Jones III, David Hazeltine, “Killer” Ray Appleton, Peter Bernstein, Cedar Walton, Dennis Irwin, Jeremy Pelt, Steve Williams, Joe Magnarelli, Ryan Kisor…

In 2005, he released his first CD as a leader Introducing Dmitry Baevsky (Lineage Records). The album features such masters as Cedar Walton and Jimmy Cobb, along with Ilya Lushtak on guitar and John Webber on bass.

In 2009, Dmitry recorded Some Other Spring (Rideau Rouge / Harmonia Mundi) while on tour in Europe with the guitarist Joe Cohn.

In September 2010, the label Sharp Nine Records released Down With It, an album featuring trumpet player Jeremy Pelt as well as Jeb Patton (p), David Wong (b) and Jason Brown (dr). The recording stayed more than four months in the Jazzweek charts (a weekly report of the top fifty Jazz recordings played on radio stations across the United States and Canada).

Baevsky's second release on Sharp Nine Records, called The Composers, came out in 2012 and features David Hazeltine on piano, John Webber on bass, Jason Brown on drums and the great guitarist Peter Bernstein on three tracks.

2015 marks his debut on Jazz Family label with Over and Out, a trio album recorded with bassist David Wong and drummer Joe Strasser.

In February 2017, the album The Day After is released (Jazz Family). It features Dmitry's regular quartet : pianist Jeb Patton, bassist David Wong and drummer Joe Strasser. 

2018 marked the release of We Two (Jazz&People), a duo recording with pianist Jeb Patton.

"A wondrous marriage of intelligence and feeling: the skill that makes anything Dmitry and Jeb able to be create rewarding realizations in sound, the precision that makes for exactness at any tempo the place from which they start, and the deep emotional range that makes this duo masters of any song they attempt, whether a dreamy ballad or a high-speed slalom." - JAZZ LIVES, NYC

In the past years, Baevsky has toured extensively throughout the world and his current band features a crack rhythm section of Jeb Patton (p), David Wong (b) and Joe Strasser (dr).

Dmitry Baevsky SOUNDTRACK (album trailer)

Audio excerpt of his SOUNDTRACK album released on 21 May 2021.

Photo credits: Marina Chassé - Capucine de Chocqueuse