Ruslan Sirota
- 6 hours ago
- 6 min read
When asked how he might describe his music Ruslan throws a quizzical look, “That's a tough one!.” He settles on “jazz meets everything else,” with a laugh, and then adds, “My preferences gravitate more towards a certain level of musical content, rather than to a certain style or a particular vibe that I favor over any other. This leaves things pretty open for me, stylistically, both as a musician and a fan.”
A Grammy Winner, self-described as average height, Ruslan is just as at home in elegant concert attire as he is in his Chuck Taylor's and blue jeans. Currently living in Los Angeles, Ruslan has already traveled the world, playing with some of the biggest names in Jazz and pop music. Like most great musicians, however, Ruslan recalls humble beginnings. “Around the age of six I put music to a local poet's song describing the beauty and charm of our little town.” That little town was Uman, in what is now Ukraine. Ruslan calls Uman his “first hometown” and it was there that his father, leader of a top 40 party band, infused him with a love for music. “I remember - at the age of four - being thrilled hearing my dad's band at a gig.” His dad wasn’t the only musician in the family. Ruslan’s musical heritage found its roots in his family’s past. “Both my mother and father's families go back for generations of musicians,” he says. “Back in the day they used to have ‘family orchestras’. “I've seen pictures of it,” Ruslan says wistfully. “My grandpa at seven years-old, holding a mandolin, with his parents and siblings on other instruments.”
Ruslan gives large credit for his early love for music to his improvisation teacher, Andrei Mikolaichuk – a man Ruslan describes as a “strange fruit.” “He was the complete opposite of everything Soviet music and ideology stood for,” Ruslan fondly says of his early mentor. “He dressed weirdly, walked barefoot on stage, wrote controversial songs and lyrics about the State and listened mainly to American music, jazz and R&B.” Andrei infused their lessons with the joy of free-form expression, in-line with his love of American jazz. “It was in the spirit of jazz. It was spontaneous and creative. It was truly improvised. From nothing came something,” Ruslan said. “We would sit for hours and just jam, improvising music in different styles, genres and colors. He was all about developing creativity and free flow." Most importantly, Ruslan began to see music as a mission in itself, a source of passion. “Most of his students were children my age,” Ruslan says. “Sons and daughters of parents daring enough to have their kids study with someone like Andrei. Banished from all musical institutions at the time and subjected to massive criticism - he was standing for a noble cause.”
When he was 10 years old, Ruslan moved to the Israeli city of Bat Yam. There, his inspirations emerged along different lines, transporting his developing boyhood mind to new and exciting places. “Quite a few things sparked my imagination. Strange things like the roofs of tall buildings,” recalls Ruslan of what he calls his “second home town.” “I used to walk around town and climb on every high roof and watch everything from on high. There was something about seeing it all from above I found - and still find - very inspiring.” His view of the town afforded Ruslan with a great vantage point from which he would dream and imagine what lay beyond the fields of his vision. “Through the window in my room, I could scope big parts of the city, different
buildings, even some mosques in the old city of Jaffa. If the weather was good you could observe the sea.”
Young Ruslan would peer from his window to the sea beyond, and it would remind him of the shores of another ocean a world away - the ocean pictured on his beloved VHS copy of the 1993 Newport Jazz Festival. “I would watch the sea from my window and just get inspired, imagining the festival, the music, the players - imagining that it was, in fact, Newport I was looking at,” says Ruslan of his childhood fantasies. "I eventually ended up playing at the Newport Jazz Festival years later.”
Building on the musical education he’d begun in Uman, Ruslan was exposed to more Jazz. At the age of 12, his father played him George Benson’s “Breezin’”. That seminal album captured Ruslan’s imagination. “I spent countless hours listening to that album again and again. Around that same time, I actually purchased my first record - Chick Corea’s ‘Return to Forever’ - with Stanley Clarke on bass and Airto Moreira on drums. I still have it - it’s great! When I got more into music, I discovered Queen and was hooked on them. Later came Pat Metheny, Yellow Jackets, Keith Jarrett along with countless others."
Ruslan, at 17, captured a full scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and, with personal assistance from legendary vibraphonist Gary Burton, was able to relocate to Boston for his studies. "If it wasn't for Gary Burton I would have never been able to move to the United States", says Ruslan. "He singlehandedly helped pay my living expenses on campus, allowing me to take advantage of my full scholarship. Without Gary's help my life would have never looked the same. I owe him the world."
After graduating in 2003, Ruslan jumped right in and began playing with the most prolific and legendary names in Jazz and Pop music. He has collaborated and toured the world with Josh Groban, Seal, Al Jarreau, Rachelle Ferrell, Chick Corea, George Duke, Ne-Yo, Marcus Miller, Seal, Stewart Copland, Brian McKnight, The LA philharmonic, and countless others. "It was very educational and enriching to play music with so many incredible artists around the world. It definitely gave me a rare perspective for which I'm very grateful. It also helped me figure out what I wanted out of life. Sometimes it helps to try everything on the menu to find your favorite dish."
Ruslan played on and wrote material for the great Stanley Clarke’s “The Stanley Clarke Band”, which won a Grammy award for “Best Contemporary Jazz Album Of The Year”. "Stanley played an enormous role in my life, my musical development, and my career. We toured together for almost eight years and I learned so much. So much about music, about the business, about life in general. He truly is a musical father to me. We're both into Jazz, and Classical, and Folk, and R&B, and Rock and this and that.. It was really healthy for me to be around someone who is like that and learn some self acceptance through it. It was such a thrill to introduce Stanley to my dad, who has been a fan since before I was even born! On my upcoming 2016 release I dedicated a song to my father and featured Stanley Clarke on it, it just made perfect sense to do it that way, you know?"
In 2011 Ruslan released his debut solo album, featuring collaborations with Clarke along with some of his other heroes; Chick Corea and George Duke.
In 2018 Ruslan is releasing another solo album featuring all original music recorded with a symphony orchestra. It’s widely held knowledge that the method of creation differs from artist to artist. It’s described as both ecstasy and agony, depending on the artist. For Ruslan, the creation of his music is a quasi-spiritual experience. “Very often it’s almost a dictation. I just start hearing bits of melodies, chords in my head. It starts coming to me, and if I don't interrupt the process I may end up with a good 60% of the piece ‘dictated’ to me by my ‘inner music fan,” Ruslan says of his process. “I write away from the piano. I find the fingers and the learned musical patterns constraining the true music within me. Namely, music not generated or conditioned by fingers. Some artists wait for inspiration - or dictation in my case. While some say this is not a productive way and usher the muse with hours of hard work - an excellent method, by the way. In my life, I've experienced both ways and both work. I'm generally either too lazy or too judgmental of the uninspired outcome to just sit and start writing, so I end up waiting for the voice to show up.”
In the end, though, it all comes back to the artist and now Ruslan is setting his sights on his own music.
