Max Kochetov Quartet - Altered Feelings (January 28, 2022 A.MA Records / A.MA Edizioni)

Ukrainian born and Serbian by adoption, saxophonist and composer Max Kochetov has created a 42 minute suite of sublime Jazz that fuses psychedelia, spirituality, bebop, rock, soul and funk into a melange of Latin, Brazilian, Pan-African and Indian influences. Conceived as a suite in eight parts Altered Feelings was recorded in one take in a live studio session with each member of the Quartet (and its two special guest musicians) meeting the challenge, aided by the unique and outstanding acoustics they found in the studio.

Each of the eight compositions reflects and represents an altered mood and the whole suite reveals itself as a coherent flow of narrative with the opening and closing themes creating a symmetry and a resolution.

'There is Coltrane and his vertical gaze in this flow, there is the desire to create music strongly linked to the very hard times we are experiencing and an inner escape from the reality that we are all going through; something more nuanced that can be understood and explained through music and it composition.'

1. Intro

2. Groovin

3. Sultry Requiem

4. Altered Feelings

5. Waltz

6. Rhetorical Morning

7. Impression

8. Outro

Max Kochetov Alto Soprano Saxophones

Andreja Hristic Piano

Boris Sainovic Double Bass

Milos Grbatinic Drums

Special Guests:

Ivan Radivojevic Trumpet (2,3)

Samuel Blaser Trombone (3,6)

Recorded by Danijel Vukovic @ FNS Studio. 7-9 Jun. 2021

Mixed & Mastered by Sinisa Kokeric & Max Kochetov @ FNS StudioExecutive Producer Antonio Martino A.MA Records

©&℗ A.MA Edizioni – Via Luigi Partipilo,36. Bari – Italy

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Milena Jancuric - Shapes And Stories (November 19, 2021 A.MA Records / A.MA Edizioni)

Starting from the second half of the 1950’s the flute began to take on the task of expressing with high, light, cheerful notes what the clarinet had expressed in the swing era in jazz recordings. Until that moment the flute in the liner notes of the records was mentioned under the heading “other instruments”. From Frank Wess and Bud Shank onward, through Sam Most, Herbie Mann, Yusef Lateef, Sahib Shihab, James Moody, Roland Kirk all the way to Eric Dolphy and Sam Rivers the flute has assumed its autonomy. Probably the advent of microphones created the technical conditions thanks to which this instrument – disadvantaged in competition with the trumpet or the saxophone whose penetrating sound dominated in the ballrooms of the twenties and thirties – began to be used as an instrument soloist adequately. Milena Jancuric, from Novi Sad, Serbia, is a true flutist, so to speak not a musician who came to play it through the saxophone or the clarinet, with an academic training and a frequentation of American circles (Berklee College of Music).

Our label became aware of her talent when we released the album by her compatriot Sanja Markovic, appreciating especially, her “open” approach free from superstructures and conditioning. Milena is intense and light at the same time and with her sensitivity she manages to make us overcome the prejudice that wants the flute timbre to be ornamental and frivolous. All “Shapes And Stories” is imbued not only with a deep knowledge of the possibilities of the instrument but also with an extraordinary knowledge of the jazz lexicon. The two final ballads “Blue Sparrow Dark Eyes” and “Dreams In You” synthetize with their sounds what we want to express with our words. Listening is believing. 

1. Purple Shoes Steps

2. Don't Fall Me Fall

3. Circle And Lines

4. Memories

5. Steps And Curls

6. Blue Sparrow Dark Eyes

7. Dreams In You

Milena Jancuric Flute

Aleksandar Dujin Piano

Ervin Malina Double Bass

Petar Radmilovic Drums

Milan Jancuric Tenor Saxophone

Aleksandra Denda Vocal

Lazar Novkov Accordion / Melodica

All Music Composed by Milena Jancuric

Recorded at Darko Varga Studio

Recording Engineer Darko Varga

Mixing and Mastering by Milan Jancuric

Album Art Cover by Petar Vucelic

Photos By Danilo Mijatovic

Executive Producer Antonio Martino A.MA Records

©&℗ A.MA Edizioni – Via Luigi Partipilo,36. Bari – Italy

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