Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Cerkno / Bar Gabrijel / Slovenia
Concert date: 03/19/2016
Attendance: 60
Ticket price: €0.00 (free admission)
Zlatko Kaučič is a big name on the Slovenian music map, and on the international one too. A true musical citizen of the world, a true musical visionary. He’s tried just about everything when it comes to conveying the art of music, and yet with his untamed creative hunger he keeps discovering and sketching out new, uncharted musical horizons, enriching us with them.
So the new cycle of Keltika rolled around, and with it another landing for Zlatko Kaučič at the charming Bar Gabrijel in Cerkno. This time he’s joined by his students, gathered under the banner of »Kombo B«. Why B? Because this is the second Kombo generation, and compared to Kombo A, which produced today’s established musicians (Samo Šalamon, Vid Drašler, Jošt Drašler, Marko Lasič, Vitja Balzalorsky, Gal Furlan), it’s a little younger, but no less talented. Kombo B, who recently released the CD »Hramo« (Gremo), played Cerkno with five drummers and percussionists, namely Tina Jenko, Tomi Novak, Nejc Franca, Žiga Ipavec and Urban Kušar, backed by two guitarists, Peter Kastrin and Jan Jarni, alto saxophonist Jure Boršič and bassist Matjaž Bajc.
After an opening introduction by Dario Cortesse, who over the years has become a true fixture of Bar Gabrijel, known for its publications devoted to bringing people back to mother nature as well as for its music (Crazed Farmers), Kombo B launched into the track Urbanova očala. This time they had to handle the vocal part entirely on their own. Under the watchful conducting baton of their mentor Zlatko, the nine-piece crew quickly spread out across the room and built a solid yet soft-footed, funk-fueled springboard, on which they rested their knowledge and jazz improvisation chops. You’ll be wondering where they crammed five drum kits onto the bar’s little stage. Well, they couldn’t, of course. So they set up two kids’ drum kits instead. On every track they played, two musicians were busy on drums, while the three “free” ones “played” with percussion in the meantime, strengthening the rhythmic framework of the songs. The five drummers swapped back and forth between drums and percussion the whole way through. As the set went on, I recognized some familiar faces on stage. We’d seen them in January, at one of the homegrown Thursdays at Ljubljana’s Gala hala. That’s the lineup of Koromač, who account for five-sixths of Kombo B’s roster, so only one of the two guitarists was missing. No wonder, then, that before announcing the track Vrtejba, Zlatko remarked that the best musicians come from that corner of Slovenia, namely Vrtojba, which is also where Koromač are from.
Over an hour and 20 minutes, Zlatko split the stage into a left and a right half. Each half communicated within itself, chasing an inner order inside the improvisational “oath” that rolled along on the lead motifs, while also keeping an eye on what the other half was up to, so things wouldn’t tip into chaos or an “aural battle” between Kombo B’s two “sub-camps”. The chaos itself was provocatively coaxed out of the musicians by their mentor Zlatko, who, Frank Zappa style, stirred the air in the room hard as he flailed his arms toward his orchestra and handed out assignments. That’s why all 18 eyes were glued to Zlatko the whole time, since none of the musicians knew when they’d have to step into the center of the action. Whoever Zlatko called out had to fire off a spontaneous improvisational burst, an imprint of their own musical perception. So, finding discipline in indiscipline. Or what even is it? Order and chaos? It’s neither one nor the other, it’s both, and in the substance of musical matter, as encoded and translated by the human medium, they inevitably intertwine. Since there can be no restrictions here, not a single motif gets repeated. That’s what the record »Hremo« is like too, played and recorded live in a single take. And that’s how the interpretation of three other tracks from the album went too: Dedek Mraz, Vrtejba and, a bit later, Srečko Lesica (dedicated to the memory of Boštjan Cvek). Kombo B added a perfect piece of free improvisation called Cjerkno, plus the track Somrak and Zlatko Kaučič’s funny memory of hanging out with Scandinavian musician friends and their sweat-soaked collection of suspicious exit odors (Norveške kancjete). Needless to say, Zlatko spiced up the evening with his humoresques and comic quips, as he told the stories behind the tracks they played.
The band delivered a special concert that night, with unrepeatable vibes and energy. It can’t be any other way with Zlatko at the helm. In the melting pot of boundless fusion, Kombo B throws in all sorts of genre spices (world music, ethno, funk, rock), clinging to a freedom-loving musical provocation, often with avant-garde views of jazz incarnate. Served up in a distinctive, one-of-a-kind way.
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