Artist: Stanisavljević, Milan
Label: Celinka
Release: 2011
Running time: 44:56
Rating: 3.8/5
If the piano is Stanisavljević’s mother tongue, then jazz is certainly the dialect he speaks. The 8 debut tracks he presents on his first jazz lesson, titled Awakening, show his knack for harmonically and melodically lively composing, even though he leans on foundations laid long before him. Those are the very foundations he mastered when he graduated with honors from the Faculty of Musical Arts in Belgrade in 2006, in Harmony with Harmonic Analysis under Ratislav Kambasković. In 2010 he climbed one more step up the ladder, earning a master’s degree in jazz piano under Olaf Polziehn. That kind of formal, highly polished education is strongly felt in his compositions. The pull toward set jazz-standard guidelines, even when the music wanders into modern waters, plus slightly predictably planned rhythmic shifts, leave the listener cold at times, and the music comes across as emotionally empty and, thanks to the heap of similar jazz out there, played-out and boring.
That’s why Stanisavljević is strongest in the nu-jazz inserts, where he holds his repetitive, dynamic patterns over excellent rhythmic backing – that’s when the music gets real value and, finally, a fresh, modern shape that’s actually interesting to listen to. These inserts are deliberately mixed in mostly along the lines of free jazz, which of course does a huge amount to get the listener in the mood for the peak. Some of the best parts of this kind can be found in the first track, »Awakening«, and the third, »Trinity«. Besides such parts, Stanisavljević is also marked out by his ability to create a longer, almost story-like melody; his music really stands out then, too. One of the best pieces of truly long, connected and above all wonderfully jazzy melody is the fourth track, »Playground«, which is genuine kids’ play on a playground: the innocence of their every move, the sun and the occasional gust of wind.
Creating truly good longer melodies and dynamic repetitions is certainly a rare quality, if not an unusual one, when the musician disappoints a little with the other, simpler and more typical genre approaches and techniques. A debut album is of course the right place for extensively figuring out your skills, polishing them and raising the average, and if Stanisavljević integrates those qualities more broadly into his future creations, it will surely be a work impossible to overlook, mainly because his strengths are rarer among performers and, in a successful combination, unforgettable. That would take him away from everything he’s learned, and his master’s knowledge would be less useful, but the result would be fuller, livelier, more dynamic and fresher.
Awakening is, in the end, more than a solid debut, held back mostly by Stanisavljević’s take on traditional jazz. The strongest parts are the nu-jazz ones: a little experimental, a little odd, because they don’t quite fit the idea of »schooled« jazz. They give the album its freshness and set it apart from the ocean of identical jazz records out there. All of this is something that could really set Stanisavljević apart from the rest and finally define him as a musician. If he pulls that off later on, the music scene will surely be richer for it, but for now Awakening, for wider audiences and narrower circles alike, in a global context of course, is just »another jazz record«.
Lineup
Milan Stanisavljević – piano
Milan Nikolić – bass
Andjelko “Djele” Stupar – drums
Production
Milan Stanisavljević
Tracklist
1. Awakening
2. Glass
3. Trinity
4. Playground
5. Day & Night
6. Chicco’s Blues
7. Why?
8. Tebe nojem
