Oleksandr Kolosii

"Oleksandr Kolosii and his quartet delivers a strong in the tradition music that captured me from beat one. Bravo Oleksandr!! Carry On."  —Joe Lovano

In early 2023, saxophonist and composer Oleksandr Kolosii presents his new project "Paws Up" released on the label Unit Records (CH) and featuring a special line up of musicans who made a significant impact on Oleksandr's career: Carl Winther - piano, Doug Weiss - double bass and Anders Mogensen - drums.

The music for this project began to come “into one frame” after personal changes in Oleksandr's life after marrying his life partner. “This is a very special project for me” says Oleksandr. After 12 years of living abroad, travelling to over 54 countries and living in Copenhagen since 2017, he decided to move out to the countryside and experience family life again. “It was like a breath of fresh air” after leaving his parent's house in his early 20s to pursue his musical dreams worldwide…

“The change was absolutely right for me. I have never felt more focussed and connected with music and with my instrument. It was a time for sorting out all of the musical experience that I had gathered and to communicate this through my horn alone..” The name of the project came up during the process of transferring memories and emotions from pen to paper.  “I am so thankful to the universe for this journey over the past 12 years, full of both failures and the most valuable and joyful moments of my life”. Through introspection and searching to find beauty in simplicity, Oleksandr accidentally came up with the album title “Paws Up” because of his new family member, a cat, that has followed him on his shoulder during most of the composition sessions. In this album Oleksandr combines his strong gratitude to the jazz tradition together with honest melodies from the soul collected worldwide…

His beloved wife Tatiana had a chance to capture her impression of the music of “Paws Up” and has transferred this both on the front and back sides of the album cover.  

Copenhagen-based Polish jazz saxophonist Oleksandr Kolosii was born in 1990 to a family of professional musicians. He began playing classical piano at the age of 6 and at age 12 he picked up the saxophone and discovered his lifelong passion for jazz music. From an even earlier age, Oleksandr absorbed the professional attitude towards music from his parents. As a result, at the age of 15, Oleksandr won his first saxophone competition.

His style of playing pays tribute to legendary bebop and hard bop players like Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt and John Coltrane. He currently combines this with continuous inspiration from a wide array of world music. Oleksandr moved to Denmark in 2017 to further his career and to join the Scandinavian jazz scene. Later the same year he enrolled at The Danish National Academy of Music where he studied with some of the leading musicians of the Danish jazz scene such as Karl-Martin Almqvist and Anders Mogensen to name a few. During his final year at the conservatoire Oleksandr’s mentor was Seamus Blake.

While living in Copenhagen and visiting New York, Oleksandr has undertaken private tuition with: Joe Lovano, Marcus Strickland, Chris Cheek, Melissa Aldana, George Garzone, Walt Weiskopf and Karl-Martin Almqvist amongst others.

The fusion of world rhythms, classical music and straight-ahead jazz makes his music recognisable on the jazz scene today.

On March 19th 2021 Oleksandr released his debut album “Multicolored” featuring Danish jazz musicians and the Boston/New-York based trumpet player James Michael Cronin.

Oleksandr is a sponsored artist of MARCA REEDS (FR), mouthpiece manufacturer SYOS (FR) and SLAVIK MUSIC(PL).

He has participated in several festivals and competitions such as the Blue Note Jazz competition  – Poland, Elbjazz  – Germany, Vinterjazz  – Denmark, Copenhagen jazz festival  – Denmark and Aarhus jazz festival  – Denmark. Oleksandr uses custom ribbon microphones, designed and hand-made by Jon Alexander