All that jazz3

This is a quick review of the ongoing jazz festival in Zagreb. Poor marketing brought this event as a surprise and we had no idea what was coming our way! Although not properly announced, we have to say that this festival is a cool event Zagreb needed to break the monotony.

The festival started on the 11th October with Valerija Nikolovska Quartet. Well, honestly, they were pretty good, playing soft, mellow sounds of jazz, a lot of blues and some bossa nova. However, no matter how good, the singer looked pretty uninterested in the whole event and behaved as if she were at home singing for her soul only. She didn't reach out to the audience, she just sat there and didn't give a damn. This is something you might dare to do if you are a huge diva, with all your mood swings, and everybody just adores you cause it's simply the genius you! You have your own concert in a huge concert hall and a standing ovation just because you showed up! I personally like the way Valerija sings but I think most of her audience that night didn't appreciate that attitude and responded with murmurs which made it hard to listen to the concert. The fact was that they weren't in a concert hall and couldn't allow themselves to act that way. Finally the singer's microphone died and the band was struggling to get it working again, on stage for several minutes, while nobody even noticed that the band was having technical difficulties and they weren't playing at all! This shows that not only the organization wasn't professional and didn't care about their performers, but also that the audience didn't take the band seriously. It's a pity because they played well, had a good repertoire, but they simply lacked attitude on stage which was appropriate for this kind of an event and location.

Fortunately the next day, 12th October, crazy funk band called Starch showed up from Switzerland! Actually, these young boys make a good atmosphere, play like crazy, rap and funk it up, besides looking pretty and seducing all the girls in the audience! :) Yeah, this was a nice treat! Drums, bass, keyboards, trombone, trumpet, sax, vocals,....all very good musicians and nice arrangements. If nothing else, they definitely made contact with the audience, included them in the performance, made the whole club dance and go crazy....it was fun! More about this band - go to their website -www.starchmusic.com

Another band I would like to mention is Denis Razumović Quartet. They also proved to be a high quality band playing their original tunes from "Razz's" new album "In Umbra" as well as some standards, like their own version of Caravan. My only remark would be that I didn't really like the drummer. From what I heard, he had no sense of dynamics and sometimes exaggerated in his drumming when not appropriate, his solos are unarticulated and chaotic without any sense, and not to mention that he obviously plays rock music in his spare time, instead of jazz. I didn't really appreciate it but many people did, so maybe I am wrong. Forgive me but I am sensitive when it comes to drums. Unlike the drummer, Razz kicked ass and I loved his solos! Hope to hear him again!

Anyway, the festival is still happening so come and here some concerts! Here's a list of the following gigs:

16.10. Tortilla Flat Trio (Austria)
17.10. Gyass Gypsy Bend (Serbia)
18.10. Fine Noise feat. Miles Griffith (USA)
19.10. Ivan Tiborcz Quartet (Hungary)
20.10. Johnson 3 (Austria/USA)
21.10. As Bruxas Fatais (Croatia)

And that's it!
Keep on jazzin....