"Cool & Jazzy"
"Cool & Jazzy"
The vocal a cappella group “Cool & Jazzy” carries you away into an exciting world of music and doesn’t let go ‘til the last note. It’s fireworks of rhythms and sounds! Doesn’t matter whether it is a standard jazz composition, a popular song, or a pearl of classical music—the sound produced is so rich, dynamic and wholesome that you get impression of an entire band performing for you!
All of that, however, is made by voices alone. Any composition performed by “Cool & Jazzy” acquires a new meaning, a new sound, a new detail. These unique qualities become a characteristic of this particular group and create a “Cool & Jazzy” label. Their music ranges from classic to house, including jazz, jazz-rock, fusion, Latino, pop, rock, folk and buff. “Cool & Jazzy” sings in most known world languages, e.g. English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Yiddish, Ukrainian and Georgian and create their own arrangements unlike any others.
Members of the group:
Mark Smirnov - tenor
Yuri Smirnov- baritone
Sergei Kradinov - baritone
Leila Magomedova - alt
Natalia Afanasieva - soprano
“Cool & Jazzy” was founded in the summer of 1994 by the Smirnov brothers, Mark and Yuri, the graduates of the Gnesin Academy and Arts College , who were greatly influenced by the best world jazz bands such as “Singers Unlimited”, “Take 6” and “New York Voices”. “Cool & Jazzy” has had concert tours all over Europe , Russia , and CIS. They are the first winner of the Ward Swingle Award 2000 (the best a cappella group in Europe ), a repeated laureate and winner of international contests and festivals. They’ve participated in such music events as Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux (Switzerland), Choir Olympiade in Lenz (Austria), Tampere Savel in Tampere (Finland), VoKaL ToTaL in Graz (Austria).The group has recorded about 40 jingles for some of the post popular European radio stations, they’ve also created some well-known remakes with such famous Russian pop stars as Bravo “The Wind Knows”, A-Studio “Julia”, Alexander Malinin “The Rain”, Angelika Varum “No Answer”, Alena Sviridova “Lullaby”, Kristina Orbakaite “White Town”, Arkady Ukupnik “Wa-Ba”, and many others. “Cool & Jazzy” has released 9 albums, the latest of which are "Russian" (2002), "Salat-Bar" (2003), "Classic" (2004), "The Best" (2004) and created over a 160 compositions carrying the label "made by "Cool & Jazzy".