The St. Petersburg-based Rainy Days label launched in 2018 with a mission to present the vibrancy of current Russian jazz. The company's first release, a loose-limbed fusion set, featured Muscovite drummer Sasha Mashin and New York-based Alex Sipiagin in the front line.

The label's eighth release firms up this Big Apple connection with a showcase for Kazan-born, New York resident saxophonist Azat Bayazitov featuring pianist David Kikoski and Mingus Big Band bassist Boris Kozlov; and up-and-coming Russian drummer Samvel Sarkisyan delivers the album's bustle of crossover beats.

The full-toned Bayazitov's early playing opportunities were limited to a local Glen Miller style big band. The game changer was hearing a cassette of Joshua Redman's Spirit of the Moment: Live at the Village Vanguard. Moscow's Gneisin Academy of Music followed, and then the Moscow Jazz Orchestra.

Bayazitov's rounded sound, upper register slurs and studied approach reflect those early influences, but his focus and articulation bare the stamp of glossy mainstream New York.

The saxophonist also writes good tunes, mostly inspired by places visited while touring. This gives the album a panoramic feel and provides soloists with a narrative thread.

The set opens with swing and fusion intermixed on ‘Magnet’, continues expansively with the blues-soaked ‘The Huge Sky of Kazan’, and then slow burns over the dense harmonies of ‘Midwest Steam Locomotive’. The ballad ‘Long Fall’ is fleshed out by Adam Rogers’ guitar and later ‘Past’ gives full reign to Kikoski's rich piano voicings. The album ends with the pulse-switching title track and the funky ‘A Highway to Dreams’. Here, the Redman influence is strongest, but the leader's personality still shines through.