Lineage Records Label Launch Party at Smalls in NYC, July 14-15

Friday, July 14th - 10pm on
FRANK WESS with Leroy Williams, John Webber and Ilya Lushtak
(Celebrating Hank and Frank CD -- June 13)

Also just released June 13 to launch the label, Latin Dreams - KILLER RAY Appleton & MELVIN RHYNE Quartet featuring Milton Cardona with Ilya Lushtak

Saturday, July 15th, 10pm on
BARRY HARRIS with Leroy Williams, John Webber and Ilya Lushtak
(Celebrating Live From New York: Volume 1 out August 8)

Also featured Lineage Records Founder & guitarist, ILYA LUSHTAK
New recording artist DMITRY BAEVSKY
Introducing Dmitry Baevsky with Cedar Walton & Jimmy Cobb out Sept 12)

Small's Jazz Club. 183 W. 10th Street (west of 7th Avenue South). $15 cover. Two drink minimum. 212-675-7369.

It was one early morning in St. Petersburg during the summer of 2003, after practicing all night, that it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. Given the irreversible direction that our lives as jazz musicians were taking each time we lost a giant of jazz, it was imperative that I make every effort to connect with the human treasures still with us as soon as possible and to document their greatness as profoundly as possible.

FROM ILYA LUSHTAK ON THE LAUNCH OF A CLASSIC JAZZ LABEL

Buddhist monks maintain records of historic teachers who have passed the Dharma, the principle or law that orders the universe, from generation to generation, in an unbroken line since the time of the Buddha. This lineage of ancestors provides both the foundation and validation of the Buddhist experience for today's practitioners.

The same can be said of jazz, for over the course of the last century, our tribal elders, largely African-Americans, have created music that still orders a unique musical universe. These remarkable progenitors--Armstrong, Ellington, Parker and Coltrane to name a few--have crafted a system for spontaneous creativity that has become a global form of expression. Not surprisingly, the remarkable musical discipline we call jazz is now practiced by countless artists worldwide. Sans the limelight of the commercial media, scores of listeners and musicians have embraced jazz.

And like Buddhism, jazz is best appreciated and practiced by those who have both an understanding of, and respect for, the extraordinary lineage of jazz masters.

Russian guitarist--and now record label founder--Ilya Lushtak, has dedicated his life to the understanding and propagation of jazz. Born in the Soviet Union, Lushtak moved to San Francisco with his family when he was three. As a young man in the Bay Area, he discovered the jazz masters and soon began a lifelong quest of study and dissemination of American's homegrown musical art.

This quest has resulted in both study and working relationships with a number of living jazz masters, lessons with the guitar legend, Eddie Diehl, and the creation of a new classic jazz label, Lineage Records.