Anatole Gerasimov, soprano sax and flute player, was born in Moscow, and started to play jazz while in his teens. It was 1973 when Gerasimov, having emerged as a star in Anatole Kroll's big band, defected to the United States where his first job was for Duke Ellington Orchestra. After Duke's death, Anatole played with NYC best jazzmen as a sideman or even as a soloist, but his main work was for TV and movies (for example, it was Gerasimov who wrote the song for 1983 blockbuster, "The Liquid Sky"). In 90, he lived three or four years in Paris, until returning to his home town of Moscow in 1996. When in Moscow, he formed a new group where he is looked as a "veteran" - nobody but him in the group is older than 30 (Anatole is 54), and the keyboard player, impulsive and full of energy viruoso Anton Sevidov, is only 18 years old. The album was recorded during Anatole's three appearances at Moscow Swing, Russia's only live radio jazz concert series. Aired on Rakurs, Moscow's funniest eclectic radio which was closed in early 1998 due to serious financial problems, Moscow Swing provided a weekly concert, played live in the station's special concert studio by Russia's best jazz musicians. Anatole played there three times during 1997; the resulting show tapes' sound encouraged him to choose nine best tracks and release it on a CD.

The album, called beamingly "Yes", contains Anatole's own music which is pretty hard to describe. Ante omnia, this is not a trad jazz album. Anatole's music definition should contain words "world", "reggae", "rock", "Afro", "fusion", "how African-American jazz had influenced Russian music" etc., and there are yet much elements to describe. Listen to the album's only standard - Anatole's arrangement of Charlie Parker's "Bloomdido". Yes, you can recognize the theme, but it's played like a funny mix of a New Orleans march and a rub-a-dub song with heavy driving bass line (Anton Revnyuk) and drums (Dmitri Sevastianov). Or listen to "To Burn But Not On Fire" which in fact sounds like a reggae sung by a nostalgic Russian in a Texas roadhouse...