Self-released
Release year: 2017
Production: Rok Lopatič
Album length: 48.34 min
Genre: Jazz
Slovenia’s woodwind world would be poorer for a good few spicy bursts of sound, even ones lost on the wind, without Lovro Ravbar on the scene. The ever-cheerful, big-hearted Brežice native, known for working with Slovenian pop attraction Leeloojamais, came back last October with his second studio album, joined by a whole bunch of aces from the Slovenian jazz scene. With an ace like Lovro, there’s really no other way: if you don’t bring your A-game, you can’t keep up and ride alongside him. His studio debut “Rush Hour”, released in 2012, already proved that.
So. When we talk about “Get On Board”, this is not your typical jazz album, where you’d conservatively expect a double bass next to the sax, comfy, “laid-back” brushwork on the drums and an almost obligatory piano accompaniment. Nope. This is a “potent jazz drive” played with a huge run-up and plenty of fire. It delivers a set of compact pop jazz soul funk and art (even rock) bangers, purely instrumental, where the saxophone takes center stage and, with it, the role of the vocalist too.
“Get On Board” is Lovro’s new jazz adventure, on which this brilliant virtuoso keeps building on his highly accessible, quick-to-win-you-over musical approach, deftly walking the line between the challenge of jazz improvisation and the pursuit of top-notch musicality and arrangement tightness. The jazz component is strong, it’s the core, but Lovro addresses the listener with it in just the right teasing way, so the album is accessible even to less demanding listeners, or those who want to taste the essence of the music’s substance right away. Lovro brings so much finesse and “feeling” to his playing that he could easily play sax in art rock bands like, say, Toto and/or Level 42. That’s how much sparkling skill and supple reactivity he has when he’s holding all sorts of saxophones in his hands. The compositions, too, are extremely musical and instantly infectious. Backed throughout by a sturdy rhythmic “groove” framework, with the lead rhythms further beefed up by varied percussion work. The excellent production makes sure every building block of the whole sonic picture is placed perfectly, putting all the musicians in a state of true symbiosis within the expressive musical substance. Lovro brings tremendous variety to the album, using pretty much every type of saxophone, and as you’d expect, he often “riddles” the lead motifs with sparkling solos. Still, it’s not just the sax that dominates the compositions: the man also uses the arrangements to tap the top-class talents of the musicians he’s working with, whose solo spots add even more movement and contrast to how the compositions unfold. The album also has a faint outline of bombastic catchiness, as the excellent opener Night Ride already hints.
“Cosmic jazz” coming from another galaxy? What hints at such a coinage, this time tied to the musical substance of this album? The album cover, for one, and Lovro’s accompanying crew, who do their duty in the studio and whom Lovro named The Astronauts, and of course the greeting on the back of the booklet: “We come in peace to all of humanity”. And of course the music itself, which, with its compact, penetrating musicality and funky rhythms, can take you to a place where you switch off completely, let the album carry you away and send your brain out to pasture.
A brilliantly polished album from head to toe, which invites you on an intergalactic adventure with its meaningful title alone. Lovro Ravbar is a big perfectionist, and that shows in the finish of the compositions themselves, in the wide palette of top-class, jazz-seasoned musicians on this album, and in Lovro’s skillful use and placement of all the chess pieces at his disposal in the pursuit of tight arrangements and, as a result, highly infectious musicality, mood variety and funky groove hunger. “Get On Board” is an album by Lovro Ravbar that enchants and seduces with its cheeky charisma, optimistic energy and fiery compositional punch. An album that will make even those music lovers who normally run a mile from the word jazz fall for the genre. An album whose perfection lets it go toe to toe with its contemporaries on the international stage without breaking a sweat. Both stylistically and in terms of sound production.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.5 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Night Ride
2. Meet Point
3. Up in Flames
4. Rule Bender
5. Been There
6. Who’s That Knockin?
7. Cycles
8. Back to the Future Planet
Lineup:
Lovro Ravbar – saxophones
Matija Dedič – piano, electric piano
Rok Lopatič – keyboards, electric piano
Tomaž Gajšt – trumpet
Zvonimir Bajevič – trumpet
Antonio Geček – trumpet
Jure Urek – trombone
Miron Hauser – trombone
Jernej “Jerry” Trobentar – guitar
Miha Koretič – guitar
Igor Leonardi – guitar
Alen Svetopetrič – bass guitar
Tadej Kampl – bass guitar
David Morgan – drums, percussion
Janez Gabrič – drums
Nino Mureškič – percussion, vocals
Lazaro Ahmed Hierrezuelo – percussion
Peter Ugrin – strings
Franklin Arrindell – “steel drum”
Lana Janjanin – vocals
