Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: džeZZva
Label: Self-released
Release date: 17.11.2014
Running time: 53:23
Rating: 4.5/5
džeZZva are an experimental instrumental quartet from Prekmurje, and their arrival adds some seriously welcome color to the Slovenian music scene. It’s a combination of four top-notch musicians devoted to the freedom offered by that ever-appealing phenomenon of musical experimentation, or unbridled tunes, the kind you get from free-spinning forms of musical improvisation.
This quartet of highly distinctive and respected musicians doesn’t just work in a special way, it works in an extremely attractive way, and it’s thrilling at every single moment of the album. They pull this off not only thanks to a huge amount of jazz improvisation and the layered musical sensibility of the individual members, but thanks to their remarkable knack for crossing genre boundaries, all of which end up in the band’s melting pot. In realizing the band’s original musical artistry, this comes across as unique and homegrown, as well as eclectic.
The word »džeZZva« instantly makes you think of brewing Turkish coffee. Hence the meaningful choice of album cover. The quartet draws a winning poker hand of musical out-of-the-ordinary, mostly by blending genres into a musical minestrone and through their remarkable tolerance for one another. Comparisons with Pat Metheny Group are entirely fitting. Even so, the »musicographic« perception of the Pomurje »microlocation« of the old European continent is the backbone of džeZZva’s distinctive sound. Iztok Rodež must have found his inspiration in Pat Metheny. That’s confirmed not just by the occasional style of his guitar playing, but by the sound itself, which is a distant but still kindred Slovenian imprint of the playing of the aforementioned guitar wizard. Even the arrangement of the lead motif phrases draws on Pat Metheny Group principles, since the interplay of piano and guitar between Berden and Rodež sometimes comes close to the unmistakable Metheny-Mays duo. Iztok conjures up Metheny right from the opening of East, then again in the jazzy variations within Spring, as well as in the first guitar improvisation »entrance« in the rework of the Slovenian traditional song Če bi ges bijla fčelica.
džeZZva have an exceptional sensitivity for dishing out the ideas that come to them in just the right amounts. The musical puzzle they build is remarkably listenable, even though we’re witness to constant, sudden experimental »turns«, with all four building blocks of the band’s sound trading solos and a nonstop string of motif switches. The element of surprise in their playing spoils the listener with acts of spontaneous excitement. It’s pronounced, and that’s exactly one of the greatest attractions of this musical document, which is seriously dense and complex and therefore demands more of your attention. In return, though, it’ll reward you richly, because it’ll grow on you irreversibly after a few spins in your CD player.
Even in the spots where the band allows itself the most experimental freedom, like the superb IndinA, which is »driven« by pronounced arabesques in the lead melody, the band never (superficially) »falls apart« across the motif sequences. IndinA has a special atmospheric grip, since a murky veil of synthesized sound (or is it an “effected” guitar sound?) is added in the background of the sonic picture, fertilizing the mood with a core whisper of mysticism. Given its jazz-rock gaze, naturally infused with ethnic arabesque forms, you’d only need to add an electric guitar and a wild xylophone, and the whole thing would dangerously approach the musical philosophy that the great and unforgettable Frank Zappa developed and put into practice in moments like these. A Little Game has a lovely cross between traditional ethnic figures of the »Pannonian sun« and jazz improvisations, the track radiates a huge dose of cheeky playfulness, and at the speed they build up inside it, the members also show incredible control over every single note they strike, which shows they’ve played and practiced a ton over their careers. In this track, Miran Celec’s excellent drum solo deserves special attention, while across the album Mojmir Wolf is the real Slovenian answer to the charm of double bass playing by the master Charlie Haden. What’s also fascinating in A Little Game is that Iztok Rodež uses sequences of differently formatted grips (chords) in his improvisations and doesn’t “shove” himself into the songs out of necessity with standard single-string jazzy “noodling” and “tightrope walking”. It’s a trick that has always lit things up and that, say, Alex Lifeson (Rush) masters brilliantly. It adds remarkable good taste to the lively heart of the album’s wonderful musical mosaic.
džeZZva also love to flirt with neoclassicism. You get that in the opening part of the awakening, optimistically gazing, »earthy« Spring, and especially in Berden’s solemn keyboard intro to the closing Panonnian fantazen Nr. 1. That closing track is a fascinating mini epic suite, a gorgeous and sensual weave of classical and jazz premises, with a breath of Pannonian melody blowing through it, full of playful jazz variations.
The album »džeZZva« counts as a unique and endlessly fascinating piece of work, where everything works in a gorgeous symbiotic relationship of great musical tolerance, generated by the layered (we could also say complex) musical sensibility, breadth and vision of all four musicians. Let’s hope this debut gets a successor or two in the coming years. For now, it’s time to put »džeZZva« on another spin.
Line-up
Dejan Berden – piano, synthesizer
Iztok Rodež – guitar
Mojmir Wolf – bass guitar
Miran Celec – drums, percussion
Production
Dejan Berden & Iztok Rodež
Track list
1. East
2. Če bi ges bijla fčelica
3. IndinA
4. Doli v kraju sama zase
5. A Little Game
6. Spring
7. Pannonian fantazen Nr. 1
