Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / SiTi Teater / Slovenia
Concert date: 14.02.2013
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: 18,00€ / 20,00€
Whenever Mia steps into the concert spotlight, it’s hard to resist the temptation. Her name is recognized, respected and firmly planted in our everyday lives, as the evergreen interest in her shows, which never fades. So the packed SiTi Teater welcomed Mia with open arms. On Valentine’s Day. On stage were Mia Žnidarič and her backing crew – a trio led by her husband Steve Klink (keyboards), with the indispensable rhythm section of Robert Jukič (double bass) and Aleš Rendla (drums).
SiTi Teater is always on time. Down to the microsecond. Don’t even think about being late. The curtain pulls back on a modest cabaret set, crowned with a glowing spotlight, and before your eyes and ears an honest, organic musical picture book starts to unfold. No hide-and-seek. Mia greets the crowd right away and sends the lighting guy to shine beams of light on them. An extraordinary gesture that wins the audience over in an instant.
Mia once again blew people away with her unique take on a familiar musical temptation – a cabaret-soaked array of jazz, soul and blues standards, tailored around the central role of her soul-tinged, spirit-tending vocal styling. It’s incredible how much room Mia Žnidarič’s voice takes up inside a song. In the intimate setting of SiTi Teater, with all the sensuality of her delivery, it sparkled in full glory. Mia has exceptional charisma and a tangible vocal color palette, and in her hands both knock contagiously on the door of your emotions. The audience was hers that night.
»Moon River« by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer was surely the performance of the night, even though at two points in that very song you could tell Mia’s voice wasn’t in top form for this show! Still, it was a gorgeous rendition, led by Mia’s gently caressing, delicate voice. Who could resist it? Resistance was hopeless this time. The concert, split in two parts with a 15-minute break in between, brought a bit more cash to the SiTi Teater bar, and it did Mia some good too. She got through the night on energy tablets and meds just to stay on her feet on stage – ah, this viral winter season, will you ever end?! Still, the one-of-a-kind Slovenian smooth jazz diva hid her battered health superbly during the vocal performance.
As for the rest, many of the songs revolved around one eating habit or another. From the stingingly teasing peeling of a grape (»Peel Me A Grape«, which Diana Krall also loves to perform) to the playful adaptation of Nat King Cole’s »The Frim-Fram Sauce«, and among the food-themed numbers, one of the evening’s highlights came already in the first half of the show with the original »I Like Pie, I Like Cake«, which Steve (in endearingly self-taught Slovenian) and Mia introduced as the third collaboration between Mia Žnidarič, the trio and the American embassy. This list also includes the cheeky adaptation of »Watermelon Man«, originally one of master Herbie Hancock’s jazz standards, and the verse about apple strudel in Mia’s adaptation of »My Favourite Things« (»Najljubše reči«), which the great John Coltrane once, long ago, also used for breathing exercises.
The admiration for Feri Lainšček got its tribute in performances like the phenomenal setting of »Ti veš« and in the predictably obligatory standard of Mia’s repertoire, »Pobarvanka«, which the singer and the trio played at the end of the show. But Mia’s affection wasn’t reserved for Feri alone. Svetlana Makarovič was neither overlooked nor unheard either, when Mia and the trio tackled »Gospa Moda«, »Iskre« and »Noč«. And we can’t skip the especially tender interpretation of »Ptica sem brez kril«.
Even without a horn section, an orchestra or smooth jazz guitar licks, Mia saved the day on stage with her one-of-a-kind vocal charisma, in true master style. Alongside a playful Steve, who kept filling the background of the accompaniment with jazz licks the whole way through, Mia and the trio effectively cashed in on their skill even in the more demanding numbers like »Z očetom«, »Snežinka« and »Ti veš«. One of the first songs of the concert especially caught fire, the swing-clad »Al si ti al’ nisi ti moj ljubi« (yet another adaptation of a Nat King Cole standard). Simple as that. This is the mileage, power and confidence that become part of an artist’s life. With her power, one-of-a-kind charisma and ravenous vocal relentlessness, Mia proves she’s still first violin in her line of work. Her musical message, a universally infectious and accessible distillate of smooth jazz and soul-blues forms, carries a special, highly prized artistic value in the Slovenian entertainment playground. A wonderful evening that glued the audience to their seats with a hypnosis they could barely shake off before whirling out into Thursday night life.
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