But that's not what Ira Stein is best known for playing. He was one half of the Ira Stein and Russell Walder duo. They recorded a pair of albums on Windham Hill and one for Narada records, scoring a minor hit with the song, "The Underground" before calling it quits in the early 1990s. Ira went on to record two solo albums for Narada, creating what he calls "Chamber Jazz."

That description reached its full classical implications with his album, BACH IMPROVISATIONS. With Zinn and Hebert, Ira took Bach chorales and arranged them for his trio, using them as launch pads for improvisation.

"The inspiration came, when I was out in a friend's country house just reading through a Bach chorale music book and I heard soprano sax play the melody of a chorale and it seemed to fit it so well and then that kind of stuck with me for a while. And the Jan Garbarek OFFICIUM album with the HILLIARD Ensemble came out and that was kind of the same kind of concept where they took renaissance music and they improvised over it. There's not a lot of that out there and I felt like that was something I could really relate because I love both kinds of music."

Ira Stein lives in a small bungalow in Oakland. Even though the house is already crowded with the belongings of his wife and the toys of his pre-teenage son, he's taken over their living room with his baby grand piano and synthesizers. He started out as a jazz pianist playing any gigs he could get, weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc, when he met Russell Walder at the Naropa Institute in 1981. They forged an intimate duet sound for piano and oboe and their first demo became their debut album, ELEMENTS, for Windham Hill Records. That was followed by TRANSIT, which included "The Underground." They expanded their sound on UNDER THE EYE for Narada Records. Walder packed his oboe off to New Zealand, while Stein carried on, working a chamber jazz world fusion mix for two more albums for Narada before striking out on his own.

He released Bach Improvisations to critical acclaim two years ago and now is working with Russian singer Irina Mikhailova.

She was born in Kazakstan, and studied music at St. Petersburg Academy of Music before moving to the San Francisco bay area in 1992. She almost immediately fell in with the world music scene there.

Although Irina plays many instruments, it's her voice that seduces you into the music. Sometimes she sings in Russian, sometimes, a hybrid language of her own design.

"I think it is because when I came to American it was almost like a little bit frustrated with my poetry writing, because in Russia I wrote a lots of poetry, because it was easy for me. I did think in Russian. So I came here and I couldn't write anything for years. And then I just start to come up with my own language. It was like my savior."

She brings that sound to several recordings, including a CD called GOTHICA and her best know album, RUSSIAN TWILIGHT. She was a member of the critically acclaimed women's choir, Kitka, and in recent years, Irina has been singing with Hans Christian, Ancient Future and Ira Stein.