Igor Zakus is one of the best jazz bass-guitarists in Ukraine. He is also a composer, bandleader, teacher, and co-founder of JazzKolo Project.Igor was born and grown up in Chervonograd near Lviv, Ukraine. He graduated from Music College and Music Academy of Lviv as an oboe player, though all this time he messed around with a bass guitar once in a while. And it was the biggest mistake he ever made for sure. )) His bass guitar got him into a trouble of jazz, fusion, funk and other genres that you come across further on…
Igor is mostly into a melodic thing, not into the funky groove, though most of his colleagues rely on him as a source of drive, furious slap, and stability in a band.
Igor founded his first band Fest way back when he lived in Lviv. This band released only one album ‘Best Friends Around (U Koli Druziv)’ in 1999, with different personnel, and keyboardist Yury Shepeta, only after Igor moved to Kyiv. Each of next two albums by Zakus (‘Dedications’, 2003 and ‘Zakus Was Here’, 2006) turned out to be a kind of breakthrough in terms of craftsmanship, better recording, and new tunes, which determined Igor’s own style. The latest project by Zakus is ‘Kolomyiky’ (2008). This is a number of traditional Ukrainian songs put into paradigm of contemporary jazz fusion.
Being arguably the most wanted jazz bass-guitarist in Ukraine for 10 years, Igor made living mostly by playing with pop stars. Among the most notable are Ukraine’s pop-singer Taisia Povaliy, and ViaGra girls-band, which is mega-popular in Ukraine and Russia now. Igor’s personal responsibility made him a bandleader most of times. And those, who are in the backing band for ViaGra formed Z-Band – Zakus Band, which members presented on most of Igor’s CDs and his projects for several years.
Most of jazzmen Zakus plays with are also stand for “Ukrainian jazz elite†among critics and audiences. Despite being too busy and hardworking bassist, Igor can be heard in many, many different projects. For example, he was with a band that played with Michel Legrand in Kyiv, played a gig with Marque Golmore’s Drum FM from Britain, not to mention numerous stage appearances with Ukrainian jazzmen. You can find his name on CDs by Yuliya Roma (‘Heartbeats’) and Natalia Lebedeva Trio’s highly critically acclaimed ‘Paints’ (2006) and ‘Medium Cool’(2008) albums.
In February 2007 Zakus became an artistic director and co-founder of yet young but already successful JazzKolo project. JazzKolo in known for number of live concerts, CD’s, and DVDs by the best Ukrainian jazz people, and it keeps on doing its so demanded work for Ukrainian jazz scene…
