Dainius Pulauskas Group

Dainius Pulauskas Group is one of the most influential and active Lithuanian jazz units, and may rightly be called ambassadors of Lithuanian jazz. Jazz critic Jan Patterson, in his article portal All About jazz (October 10, 2011) , this group described as “The Dainius Pulauskas Group is a unique sextet whose mixture of melody and muscle, lyricism and the unexpected, places it firmly at the forefront of progressive European jazz-fusion.” and the group leader is characterized as  “pianist/keyboardist Pulauskas is without a doubt, one of the most interesting composers at the fusion end of European jazz, and has been at the helm of this sextet for seventeen years”.
The Finnish jazz critic Risto Haapsamo has referred to their highly idiomatic version of fusion as "a forceful pulse of modern jazz".

The group started in 1996 at the Birštonas Jazz Festival. In 1997 they released a debut album “Penetration”. Dainius Pulauskas Group has beaten all local records by rising to the hall of fame of Lithuanian jazz in an amazingly short time.
During the years of its existence D.P.G. participated in many prestigious European, Asian, African and American jazz festivals. The main festivals:

“Tokyo Jazz Festival 2014” (Japan), „Izmir European Jazz Festival 2014“(Turkey), „London Jazz Festival 2013“ (U.K.), "Bratislava Jazz Days 2013" (Slovakia), "Garana Jazz Festival 2013" (Romania), "Ottawa Jazz Festival 2013" (Canada), “Cape Town Jazz Festival 2013” (Republic of South Africa), “Cairo Jazz Festival 2013” (Egypt), "Acacia Festival 2012" (Ethiopia), “Hong Kong International Jazz Festival 2011” (China), “Penang Island Jazz Festival 2009” (Malaysia), “Big Band Jam Festival 2007” (Washington, USA), “Jakarta Jazz Festival 2007” (Indonesia), “Kristianstad Jazz Festival 2006” (Sweden), ”Jazzy colors”, (2005, Paris, France), "Sibiu Jazz" (2005, Romania), "Oslo Jazz" (2004), "Stockholm Jazz Festival" (2002), "Copenhagen Jazz Festival" (2002), "JazzYatra" (2001, India), "Beijing, Shanghai and Changchun International Jazz Festival" (1999, China), "JazzBaltica" (1998, Salzau, Germany) and more.

The group was  awarded  in “Yesterday - Pärnu  ‘99” (Estonia); to recognize their achievement, the Lithuanian Musicians' Union awarded the group with the Golden Disc in 2001; in 2004 the group received the LT Identity award of the Lithuanian Institute for promoting Lithuanian jazz.

The group recorded 7 CD:  “Penetration”, “1999”, “Autumn suite”, “Colours”, “Orca”, “Vilnius – in the palm of your hand”, “Mixtum compositum” and 2 DVD: “Trajectories”, “Live from Lithuanian Radio’s Studio”.

© Jūratė Kučinskaitė

Group members:

Dainius Pulauskas - p, synth
Valerijus Ramoška - tp, flhn
Rimantas Brazaitis - sax
Vytautas Labutis - reeds (since 1998)
Vladislav Borkovski - b
Leonid Shinkarenko - b (since 2004)

Domas Aleksa - b (since 2013)
Linas Būda - dr
Arkady Gotesman - perc

Also participating in special projects:

Skirmantas Sasnauskas - tb
Eugenijus Jonavičius - g
Herbie Kopf - b