Beyond being a vocalist of rare purity and daring, Theo Bleckmann is a sound painter who creates what JazzTimes has described aptly as “luminous webs” in music. The German-born New Yorker – after appearing on two ECM albums by Meredith Monk and another by Julia Hülsmann makes his striking label debut as a leader with Elegy. This album showcases Bleckmann as a composer as much as a singer, with several instrumental pieces voiced by what he calls his “ambient” band of kindred-spirit guitarist Ben Monder, keyboardist Shai Maestro and the subtle rhythm team of Chris Tordini and John Hollenbeck. Highlights include Bleckmann’s sublime rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s “Comedy Tonight” (“tragedy tomorrow… comedy tonight”), as well as the mellifluous vocalise of “Little Elegy” and achingly poetic “To Be Shown to Monks at a Certain Temple.”
Artistic creation is closely linked with the need to take that which remains hidden in the unconscious to a higher level governed by consciousness. In the exercise of transforming the occult into something visible, the artist, through a state of catharsis of being, goes about creating an imaginary space where they are able to germinate symbols, capture ideas and project from the magic of playfulness an aesthetic argument that aspires to transform the creative impulse into a significant and substantive action. However, for a work to be deemed a truly creative act, it is not enough to solely unearth the hidden in the unconscious nor to bring from the darkness that which exists in the depths of being. There must exist, within the artist, the will to manifest a transparency that allows the light to enter their inner world. The symbolism contained in the existing link between the action of "letting in the light" and creative realization, is embodied in a sublime way through House Full of Colors, the debut album by STAUB Quartet. This cooperative project, rooted in the development of acoustic improvisation, brings together four essential figures of our time in European creative music: violinist Carlos "Zingaro", guitarist Marcelo dos Reis, bassist Hernani Faustino and cellist Miguel Mira. The approach offered in this album debut of this quartet of distinguished musicians - all having emerged from today’s thriving Portuguese music scene - finds its inspirational epicenter in the concepts of light and color. This conceptual reference is embodied in the album title as well as the names of each piece while also giving life and nurturing a musical approach that yearns to explore uncharted creative territories. So claimed Paul Cezanne, "Light is not something that can be reproduced, but something that should be represented using something else". The artistic testimony amalgamated by STAUB QUARTET in House Full of Colors, the means used for that representation, are sounds and music. Talking about color also involves talking about light; it is due to light that we see the shapes and colors of forms. However, with subsequent discoveries about how the brain interprets colors in "Color Theory", outlined by Goethe, along with the current research in color psychology, it is agreed that color has a subjective value that is based on the phenomenon of human perception.
There is no doubt that subjectivity can be fertile ground for the blossoming of an artistic idea that seeks to extrapolate the perception of color to music and, in the case of House Full of Colors, that aspiration materializes in a sublime manner. The album passes through different climates - mostly associated with the perception of color and light that gives it life - but finds a common denominator in its abstract nature (which is to say that it doesn’t respond to predetermined stylistic concepts), a spacious and relaxed exploration of the material (which comes from careful listening and mutual understanding with which they interact collectively) and the constant playful instinct that pervades the improvisational approach of the quartet. In its subtle journey, the music passes through the spacious contours and introspective calm of Quiet Arcs, the disturbing intensity that emerges from the complex sound structure exposed in Red Curtains, the fleeting and elusive character of Opacity Rings, the sonic flirtations and emphatic dramatics of Knots of Light, the haunting beauty of a dream-like atmosphere developed in Resonant Shades and the multi-weighted temperament open to myriad readings emanating from Discrete Auroras. All of it ranked by the quality of the ideas of its interpreters and framed in the context of a consummate collective delivery. At the time, the brilliant Kandinsky - influenced by Goethe and Delacroix - showed that sound and color had powerful effects on the human condition as both can become "means to exert a direct influence on the soul." Based on similar principles, STAUB QUARTET, through House Full of Color, has produced a work capable of illuminating the soul of everyone who is willing to "let in the light" to their inner world. Sergio Piccirilli
Up North, the trio’s brand new album, represents going home, to the northern part of The Netherlands, where Langedijk was born. To develop the compositions for this album, guitarist Langedijk and bassist Pannekeet spent the summer in Wedgeview Studio, located in the green heart of The Netherlands. A region that a century and a half ago was much loved by painters from The Hague, they found their inspiration for the particular sky, light and water. Distant from crowds, the two created this 6th album in peace. This unique collaboration resulted in a number of compositions that defines the band more than ever.
Tim Langedijk – Guitarist Langedijk (1984) graduated cum laude at the Rotterdam Conservatory. Langedijk started his trio in 2006. Besides his trio he does studiowork and arranging. With different groups he toured throughout Europe. Contemporary jazz that branches out into fusion and country, it’s all possible with Langedijk, yet always with a lovely tone and refined movements.
He likes beautiful melodic lines and subtle harmonies and he also searches for intriguing and adventurous soundscapes. He played with Jasper van ’t Hof, Adam Nussbaum, Tommy Smith.
Currently he’s teaching at the Haarlem Conservatory.
Udo Pannekeet – Bass player Udo Pannekeet (1978) graduated cum laude at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In 2002 he started his own quintet Pitch Pine Project, featuring Martijn van Iterson, Tom Beek, Chris Strik en Rob van Bavel. The group got a lot of critical acclaim in the Netherlands as well as outside of it, playing in France, Belgium and Germany. PPP played at the North Sea Jazz Festival twice, with famous trumpet player Randy Brecker. Udo played at major festivals en venues in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Turkey, China, the Philippines and Switzerland.
On (2014, Bow Shock Records) is his first album under his own name. With top-notch players: Jeroen van Vliet, Pascal Vermeer and Belgian saxophonist Erwin Vann.
Udo teaches bassguitar and theory at the conservatories in Tilburg, Haarlem and Enschede.
Hans van Oosterhout – Hans (1965) started playing drums at the age of seven. After graduating from high school, he is immediately admitted to the Jazz Department of the Rotterdam Conservatory. Even before finishing his studies, he is offered a position as a drum teacher at the Rotterdam Conservatory, a position today he still holds since 1987. Currently also teaching at Fontys in Tilburg. Over the years Hans has established himself as one of the much sought after drummers in Europe. He has been performing with Toots Thielemans, Philip Catherine, Kenny Wheeler, John Scofield, Gino Vannelli, Lee Konitz, Rick Margitza, Denise Jannah, and many more.
In 1998 The Belgian Jazz Magazine voted Hans ‘Best European Jazz Drummer’.
1. Current · 8:45 2. Gerridae · 4:38 3. Song of Secrets · 6:44 4. Flor Ane · 5:07 5. Up North · 5:20 6. Mystics · 3:00 7. Status · 3:34 8. Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry · 3:15
Dès le premier titre le ton est donné! Bienvenue dans l'univers tumultueux de Papanosh. Comme sur leur précédent album Oh Yeah Ho, les cinq jazzmen français débarquent avec un tourbillon swing destructuré et jubilatoire à l'imaginaire tout mingusien et dolphyesque. Le quintet du collectif des Vibrants Défricheurs joue avec les codes du jazz pour mieux le faire vivre et danser. Sur ce A Chicken in a Bottle, les trublions imprévisibles brisent les rythmes, alternent mélodies élégantes et tempêtes rythmiques. Ils trempent leur groove fulgurant dans un folklore imaginaire, de Tijuana à la Havane en passant par La Nouvelle Orléans. Papanosh est un quintet de musiciens qui se sont construits ensemble, où chacun peut être leader. Solos et fièvre collective s'enchaînent avec une évidence rare, le tout avec une dérision que seuls les grands musiciens peuvent se permettre.
Les cuivres du saxophoniste Raphaël Quenehen et du trompettiste Quentin Ghomari irradient, les rythmiques du contrebassite Thibault Cellier et du batteur Jérémie Piazza jouent avec notre tension, tandis que l'orgue B3 et autres claviers de Sébastien Palis nous propulent dans le groove des meilleures années Blue Note. Au milieu de cette cavalcade festive de compositions originales trône une reprise délicate du titre Plain Gold Ring immortalisé par Nina Simone en 1958. Un pur bonheur à voir sur scène absolument.
Modern musicians living in New York City -- those with their antennae up and with the open-mindedness to soak in their musical surroundings -- are invariably the beneficiaries of what the city’s former mayor David Dinkins once referred to as “a gorgeous mosaic.”
Rather than depicting the city as a melting pot, in which myriad cultures blend into one homogenized mass of assimilation, Dinkins talked about the beauty of keeping rich cultures together, side by side, in his Inaugural Address of 1990. And so, it is possible, in walking through different neighborhoods in the boroughs of NYC, each with its own distinctive character, to experience Puerto Rican plena and bomba, Dominican merengue and bachata, Colombian cumbia, Peruvian festejo and landó and various other rhythms from the African diaspora in their pure form. And for eager musicians like Greg Diamond, those sounds and rhythms are bound to seep in.
A self-described ‘hybrid musician,’ guitarist-composer Diamond grew up in Queens, and later in a suburb of New York City, with a rich musical heritage in his own household, before he began experiencing the cornucopia of sounds the city had to offer. “I’m half Eastern European Jewish and half Colombian. My father’s a New Yorker, born and raised. He was an opera singer who studied classical piano at Juilliard, so I was listening to that music growing up. And my mother is Colombian, so I definitely grew up with that component as well.”
Spending two years in Colombia after graduating from high school was a kind of roots journey that led him deeper into his appreciation of Latin music. “When I moved back to the city in ’99, my main focus was jazz, learning the tradition,” Diamond explains. “Yet at the same time my interest in Latin music in its various forms continued further.”
From 2002-2013, when he lived near the intersection of Graham Avenue (aka Avenue of Puerto Rico) and Broadway in Brooklyn, Diamond would soak up the sounds of Hector Lavoe and Willie Colón blasting out of cars, apartment windows and porches in the neighborhood. “I got a good amount of inspiration living in that neighborhood, but more importantly, it represents a period of important growth,” he says.
Today Diamond is a quintessential product of New York City’s gorgeous mosaic, and Avenida Graham is a reflection of all his varied influences that have come together organically in his music. “I devote a lot of time studying the great masters but I also try to nourish another need to listen to other kinds of genres. I try not to limit myself to one part of the spectrum. Music is a universal language and we live in a rapidly globalizing and pluralistic society – I believe that a lot of music coming out today is a reflection of that.”
Some of the pieces on Avenida Graham had their beginnings as far back as 2009. Others were written a few months before the May 2015 session at Sear Sound Recording Studio in Manhattan. All in all it’s some of his most accomplished writing to date. Diamond, who exhibits a warm, unaffected tone in his cleanly picked lines throughout this spirited recording, is joined by a stellar crew. Drummer Henry Cole (who plays with Miguel Zenon) and pianist Mike Eckroth (formerly of John Scofield’s band) are both returning from 2012’s Conduit, as are tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake (who appears on two searing tracks here) and percussionist Mauricio Herrera. Rounding out the lineup are saxophonist Stacy Dillard and bassist Peter Slavov. The collection kicks off with the churning, odd-metered groover Synesthesia which is fueled by Cole’s polyrhythmic pulse and Herrera’s percolating percussion. Dillard, on soprano sax, engages in some tight unisons with Diamond on the head, and as the piece opens up each contributes free-flowing solos that uplift the proceedings. Cole is also turned loose over a long tag at the end, bringing this opener to an exhilarating conclusion. Rastros (“Traces”) opens on a tender note with Diamond’s fingerpicked arpeggios against Blake’s melancholy tenor tones. As the piece develops, it reveals a subtle tango flavor and gradually builds in intensity with Blake playing passionately over the top while Cole underscores with dramatic fills. Diamond’s solo here is elegant and introspective. “That’s one of my favorite tunes on the record,” says Diamond. “The harmonic progression is based on an étude that I wrote for guitar. The melody is very simple but there’s a flow to it that I like, and the mood of the piece is very somber and meditative.” He explains this track’s title: “‘Traces’ is about posterity. It also signals the importance of endeavoring to create music that is transcendent and timeless, in the face of a rapidly changing world that is becoming increasingly chaotic and ephemeral.” El Coronel is a buoyant piece that incorporates an infectious son montuno jam in the middle section. Blake and Diamond have some lively exchanges and Cole erupts on his kit at the tag. “It’s an homage to a character from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude,” explains Diamond. “It was one of the more challenging pieces for me to write and record. But in essence, I think the song itself, and many of my compositions for that matter, is all about creating a singable melody that can be seamlessly interwoven into a framework that can be both rhythmically and harmonically complex.” Diamond plays fingerstyle archtop on the solo intro to the tender A Hint of Jasmin for more acoustic effect. This moving piece is also a brilliant showcase for Dillard’s expressive tenor playing. Gentrix, a rhythmically deceptive piece in five, incorporates lots of tricky subdivisions as the tune progresses. The presence of Herrera’s conga here also gives it a kind of Afro-Caribbean feel. Laia, on the other hand, is full of complexity as it opens with a rubato intro before leaping through different tempo changes and meter changes over the course of 8:26. Dillard soars on soprano here while Diamond contributes another remarkably fluid solo, spurred on by Cole’s scintillating and interactive pulse. Ultima Palabra is a contemplative, graceful number that incorporates an alluring Argentine milonga rhythm. Eckroth contributes a particularly moving piano solo on this thoughtful number. Cascade is a lively, affecting piece that shows Diamond’s fondness for melody as a composer and also showcases Dillard’s outstanding soprano sax work. The collection closes with Diamond’s most ambitious work, Motion Suite, a kind of sequel to his “Inertia” (from Conduit). “It took roughly two years to complete,” he explains. “This one has more complexity than ‘Inertia’ in terms of tempo changes and changes in meter. I suppose that there’s a lot going on here, I’m just really happy that we could make it all come to life in the studio.” Indeed, there’s a lot going on throughout Avenida Graham, an auspicious and richly appointed outing from this promising talent on the New York scene. -- Bill Milkowski Produced by Greg Diamond. Recorded: May 27th 2015 at Sear Sound Studios – New York, NY. Chief Engineer: Chris Allen. Assistant Engineer: Grant Valentine. Mixed by James Farber at Shelter Island Studios – New York, NY – assisted by Wyatt Offit. Mastered by Dave Darlington at Bass Hit Recording. Graphic concept and package design by: Jack Frisch. Executive Producer: Joachim “Jochen” Becker.
Celebrating 20 Years as Sonic and Spiritual Brothers,
Chicago Underground Duo-mates
Rob Mazurek & Chad Taylor
Team with London Improvisers
Alexander Hawkins & John Edwards
for the Exploratory, Boundlessly Inventive and Genre-Shattering
A Night Walking Through Mirrors
At a time when the world is mired in divisiveness, a time of wall-building and fear-mongering, of Brexit and Trump, it takes visionaries to build bridges rather than tear them down. “This is protest music,” insists Rob Mazurek. “It always has been. That’s why it’s called ‘Underground’ it’s not just called that for fun. We really believe in it. The world has become so homogenized and leans so far towards the right, and this music expresses complete freedom and lack of borders. Our music is all about the obliteration of any kind of oppression, the tearing down of any kind of wall - freedom and equality, both sonically and spiritually.” For the last two decades the Chicago Underground DuoRob Mazurek on cornet and electronics and Chad Taylor on percussion, electronics and mbira have created music meant to open minds and explore alien territory. Now, on A Night Walking Through Mirrors, they’ve created a new Transatlantic partnership in the form of Chicago / London Underground, inviting a pair of renowned British improvisers – pianist Alexander Hawkins and bassist John Edwards into the creative fold. The result is an expansive sonic adventure where every unexpected note and alchemical reaction runs counter to the limited imaginations ruling social media name-calling and clannish provincialism. A Night Walking Through Mirrors, released on Cuneiform Records, documents the first meeting of these four artists, recorded live at London’s Café Oto in April 2016, during a two-night run that marked the Chicago Underground Duo’s first performances in the city in a decade. To celebrate the occasion, Mazurek and Taylor invited two London-based artists with whom they’d never collaborated but they deeply admired to perform with the duo. “We love their playing and thought they’d be a nice complement to what we do,” Mazurek explains. When it comes to the rare occasions when he and Taylor do bring other musicians into the fold, he continues, “The only criteria is people who are completely open to anything, no matter how outlandish or crazy the idea is. They just have to be 100 percent into the moment and what we’re doing.”
The London contingent of the Chicago / London Underground certainly fits those requirements. Alexander Hawkins is a pianist, organist, composer and bandleader whose highly distinctive soundworld is forged through the search to reconcile his love of free improvisation with his profound fascination with composition and structure. He’s recorded or performed with a vast array of contemporary leaders of all generations, including the likes of Evan Parker, John Surman, Mulatu Astatke, Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Han Bennink, Taylor Ho Bynum and Matana Roberts, and frequently performs in the bands of legendary South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo. John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others. “Alexander Hawkins is a very dynamic player,” Mazurek says. “His harmonic and melodic sense as well as his phrasing and his approach to playing, whether songs or free playing, are very interesting and wide-ranging. John Edwards plays the most amount of bass I’ve ever heard anybody play. He plays a lot but nothing is wasted; it all means so much. They could go anywhere, so it was just a matter of being in the moment and letting the instincts roll. It was powerful, elegant, noisy, melodic, rhythmic, free - it had all the elements that usually come up when you think about making a complete and interesting set.” Hawkins and Edwards are newcomers to one of Mazurek’s longest-running musical partnerships. The duo of Mazurek and Taylor stretches back more than 20 years to their work together in various iterations of the Chicago Underground Collective, founded by Mazurek and guitarist Jeff Parker at the famed Chicago nightclub, the Green Mill. Since spinning off from the collective in 1996, the Chicago Underground Duo has released seven remarkably creative recordings and expanded to form Trio and Quartet incarnations with the likes of Parker and bassists Noel Kupersmith and Jason Ajemian.
“We’re sonic and spiritual brothers,” Mazurek says of his profound partnership with Taylor. “It’s a special relationship, one of those cosmic things where it just works. It’s amazing that we’ve kept it going this long and hopefully we’ll continue for another 20 years.” The critically acclaimed drummer and percussionist for the Chicago Underground ensembles, Chad Taylor has been featured in Modern Drummer magazine, performed at major rock and jazz festivals worldwide, and played with a wide range of artists on both the Chicago and New York rock and jazz scenes. He has a BA from the New School of Jazz, where he studied with Joe Chambers, Yoron Israel, Pheeroan Aklaff and Lewis Nash, and a MA from Rutgers. Chad has performed on over 50 recordings and has worked with such artists as Roscoe Mitchell, Tortoise, Jim O'Rourke, Charles Gayle, Derek Bailey, Jeff Parker, Marc Ribot, Mary Halvorson, Malachi Favors, Henry Grimes, and Cooper-Moore. Composer, improviser and multi-media artist Rob Mazurek has drawn inspiration from a multitude of audio and visual styles and sources over the past three decades. Augmenting his cornet playing with computer programming, electronics and an assortment of keyboards, Mazurek's broad electro-acoustic palette defies simple categorization. His visionary work is garnering ever-increasing critical acclaim and public attention; in recent years, he appeared on the cover of The Wire magazine and was voted MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR by Italy's top jazz magazine, Musica Jazz. When not touring the world with various groups, Mazurek now lives in Marfa, TX, after having relocated back to Chicago following an extended stay in São Paulo, Brazil. In addition to Chicago Underground Duo and new Chicago / London Underground, he leads, collaborates with and composes for a wide variety of ongoing ensembles, among them Pharoah & The Underground (featuring Pharoah Sanders) and Black Cube SP. His three-piece São Paulo Underground transplants the collaborative and boundary-bursting Underground model onto a Chicago/Brazil axis, combining Brazilian influences from samba to maracatu with the interstellar jazz consciousness of the Sun Ra Arkestra and Mazurek’s own large ensemble, Exploding Star Orchestra. It’s hard enough to categorize all that transpires within the confines of a single Underground piece, let alone trying to delineate a single unifying thread that binds the various iterations together. What does distinguish all of the ensembles’ work, including this latest Chicago / London variation, is their fearlessness, a willingness, even eagerness, to venture into the unknown and find the spark of the new. “Anything is possible,” Mazurek states simply. “Whatever direction in which things go, no matter how outlandish - or the opposite of that, no matter how much it makes sense we trust each other, and that trust is integral to why this group works in all its different formats.”
That trust, despite the novelty of never having played together before, is evident from the opening moments of this recording. “A Night Spent Walking Through Mirrors” begins with abrupt smears of sound from Mazurek’s cornet, which conjure sparse replies from Taylor’s mbira and Hawkins’ piano. Over the course of the next 20 minutes, the interplay builds in chaotic intensity until the ground seems to fall away and leave the listener adrift in a gauzy haze. Jittery explosions burst in, from which emerges Mazurek’s voice intoning a sort of primal chant. Voice has become increasingly important to Mazurek’s work in recent years, and recurs throughout A Night Walking Through Mirrors, as when he urgently pleads the mantra-like title phrase of “Something Must Happen,” making literal the desperate crises underlying the album’s political urgency. “Voice is about breaking down barriers, breaking down walls, breaking down inhibition,”Mazurek says.“I want to use it more and more for my own possibilities.” “Something Must Happen” is notable for its perpetual, agitated tumult, with aggressive electronic bursts engulfing Hawkins’ frenetic piano, which finally relents in the closing minutes to dissipate in a shimmering curtain of sound. “Boss Redux” is a reimagining of a piece from the 2014 Chicago Underground Duo release Locus, beginning with the original’s infectious electronic groove and breakbeat rhythms before smashing those elements apart and refracting them into an abstracted landscape. Edwards’ creaking strings and resonant, percussive tones seem to guide the listener through a dense, mysterious jungle of startling voices, only to come out – in what may be the album’s most unexpected moment in an intimate interpolation of the jazz standard “It Might As Well Be Spring.” Finally, “Mysteries of Emanating Light” grows from a bold Taylor improvisation, first spawning a knotty turn from Edwards in which he almost seems to be wrestling his strings into gnarled, craggy shapes, until Mazurek and Taylor engage in a captivating mbira/cornet duo. Mazurek’s voice returns, this time echoing and distorting as Edwards and Hawkins parry the ricocheting sounds. It all ends in dissolving calm, an ambiguous but thoughtful moment of leave-taking. The album’s title, A Night Walking Through Mirrors, is an evocative fit for this exploratory set, capturing the sense of alluring disorientation, of sympathetic worlds upon worlds echoing into infinity. “It really felt like we would be playing and somebody would take a left turn and we’d be in another dimension,”Mazurek recalls.“Another person would take a right turn and we’d be in yet another dimension, but everybody was right there. It really did feel like a night spent walking through mirrors in that respect.”
“Atmospheric, exploratory music that creates worlds as it progresses.”BBC
“Mazurek is a player of great poise and elegance, while Taylor’s deftness, imagination and formidable technical skill make his playing a joy to listen to...from the densest meshes to the sparsest near silent passage, each sonic cypher, beat and note seem to be leading somewhere, to have been made with a purpose.”The Wire
“Following the work of Mazurek and Taylor remains a near-requirement for those invested in modern creative music.”Tiny Mix Tapes
EYOT has recorded three albums since 2008—all critically acclaimed and commercially well received. What followed were concerts and tours in more than 20 countries all over the world. Their fourth album INNATE is coming out from the kitchen of legendary sound engineer STEVE ALBINI (Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Pixies, Mogwai etc..) who recorded and mixed it at Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago. INNATE is going to be released on February 20, 2017 for an independent New York label - Ninety and Nine Records
"The proud representative of a new generation of European musicians, this Serbian quartet breaks all temporal, geographical and cultural boundaries of Balkan Jazz, explosively blending classical music, art-rock and traditional melodies. In its quest for new creative sound combinations, Eyot restlessly explores the limits between tradition and innovation and leads European Jazz off the beaten track. Known as the "Nirvana of Jazz", the four musicians light up the stage with outstandingly fresh and electrifying sounds. The quartet brings to life a music of unique creativity which strikes a pleasant balance between simplicity and sophistication, and is both coarse yet delicate."Cully Jazz Festival *Winners of the Umbria Jazz Balkanic Windows competition 2009 and MIDEM OFF Showcase 2012(Cannes, France) "This is just simply quite stunning."Mike Chadwick - SoulandJazz.com “electro jazz rock fusion - you name it they play it - full of energy and invention - a top class act”Tim Dickeson, Jazzwise "a future-minded, exciting collision of various genres creating happening music "Gilles Quinnell , PIAS, Harmonia Mundi World Village “This highly original quartet unites jazz, classical, folk and rock elements in an intoxicating mix that is at once meditative and invigorating.”Ian Patterson, All About Jazz
Discography
2010 HORIZON / Ninety and Nine Records; Magnatune; Constantinus
2013 DRIFTERS / Neuklang
2014 SIMILARITY / Ninety and Nine Records
2017 INNATE / Ninety and Nine Records
Important performances: Midem – Cannes, Jazz Café London, Sunset Sunside Paris, Cully Jazz Festival, Garana Jazz Festival, Umbria Balkanic Windows, Dubai International Jazz Fest, Nisville Jazz Fest, Vicenza Jazz Fest, DOKfest Munich, Hong Kong Jazz Fest, Belgrade Jazz fest, Brasov Jazz and Blues Festival, Jazzy Colours Paris, Jarasum Jazz Fest, Preveza Jazz Fest, Alarma Punk Jazz Sofia, Kozlov Club Moscow, b - flat Berlin, Panic Jazz Club Marostica, JZ Club Shanghai...
About INNATE
Composed and arranged by Dejan Ilijic & EYOT
Recorded and mixed by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio Chicago
Mastered by Shelly Steffens at Chicago Mastering Service
INNATE has 7 compositions of eclectic genres, putting jazz, rock, ambient, punk, classical and conceptual music into one and tremendously leaning on traditional music from Balkan and eastern European music. Most of them (precisely five) are in an odd time signature, thus, the listener can hear traditional scales and harmonies all over the album. It is a perfect mix of old and new, east and west, which by the way has been one of the EYOT’s signatures from the moment they arrived on the scene in 2008.
VEER - to change direction; shift, turn, or change from one course, position, inclination; you can hear melody moving and rhythm changing in the tune. When read in the band’s native language, Serbian, VEER is pronounced the same, but it becomes VIR /WHIRL/. This is of paramount importance, for this composition is dedicated to the famous archaeological site in Serbia, LEPENSKI VIR, one of the oldest traces of human settlements in the world (5300 BC).
HELM- is an old Slavic word for BALKAN, and this composition has an odd timer rhythm and themes played by the guitar, bass and piano at the same time, all mixed into one melody at the end, describing in a way the intricate nature of HELM/BALKAN. MOUNTAIN- stands for an aim; to climb to a mountain’s top has been a goal of countless people, both literally and metaphorically. We all have a mountain to climb... PERUN- is the old Slavic god of thunder, like Zeus, Jupiter or Thor, so you can hear his thunders coming out from the drum solo, followed by a pagan dance at the end of the composition, only to disappear into a mystic remote place...as an ancient ritual. CANNON OF INSOLATION- is dedicated to one of the greatest Serbian scientists of all time, Milutin Milankovic, who wrote a famous scientific research “Canon of Insolation and the Ice-Age Problem”, an interdisciplinary work between mathematics, astronomy, geophysics and geology. RAMONDA SERBICA- refers to a Serbian “Phoenix” flower, which, if dried and dying, can revive with only few drops of water. Furthermore, it is dedicated to the centenary of one of the greatest tragedies in human history- the First World War, and to its heroes from Serbia and other countries. The piano solo covers a fragment of a poignant Serbian traditional song “Tamo daleko”, written in memory of the said atrocity.
INNATE - the title composition is defined as “originating in or arising from the intellect or the constitution of the mind, rather than learned through experience.” Another association correlates again to the Serbian language; namely, if read imaginatively, in Serbian, INNATE is pronounced INAT, /SPITE/, a situation when a human being, against all odds and other people’s lack of support, decides that they can do it, and that, despite everything, they are going to give 120%.
