Blazin' Quartet - La mer, la pierre, la terre, l'oiseau

<p> I'm a drummer and composer and besides playing with a few other groups and co-leading others, I lead <strong>Blazin' Quartet.</strong> We have been working on our third album, and in order to release it I'm asking for your help. Hear and see more about it and about me and maybe give us a push by pledging an amount in exchange for some great rewards. </p> <p>  </p> <p> <u>If you haven't followed the band's story here it is in a summary: </u></p> <p>  </p> <p> This group started in 2008 in Amsterdam and it was instant chemistry. We were young, we found a common language and we won a few competitions that enabled us to record our first album. In 2010 we recorded our second album, <strong>Jalkan Bazz</strong>, collaborating with alternative funk-poet Rambo Amadeus. After playing at the Belgrade Jazz Festival in 2012, Downbeat wrote about BQ <i>“The clever postmodern antics of the young Blazin’ Quartet were noteworthy; featuring Serbian limber drummer Srdjan Ivanovic, they twist and tweak conventions, as might be expected from a band whose new album is called Jalkan Bazz”</i></p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Crowd_photo_biking-1485912031" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/389154/crowd_photo_biking-1485912031.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> For my personal story, I'll just say that I presently live in Paris (obviously France) after previously having spent a long time in Amsterdam (again, obviously, Holland), where I studied music and performed and composed with bands, theatre productions and films. I moved to Amsterdam from Athens (yes, in Greece), where I grew up and got a great musical education. In my High School, classes ranged from Byzantine Singing to Classical Harmony. I arrived to Athens from Sarajevo, escaping the war in Bosnia in 1992. Despite having left at the age of 8, I feel strongly rooted in that region, which you probably can hear in my music.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fw.soundcloud.com%2Fplayer%2F%3Fvisual%3Dtrue%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fapi.soundcloud.com%252Fplaylists%252F297071464%26show_artwork%3Dtrue&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fblazin-quartet%2Fsets%2Fla-mer-la-pierre-la-terre-loiseau&amp;image=http%3A%2F%2Fi1.sndcdn.com%2Fartworks-000206055857-jtmfyh-t500x500.jpg&amp;key=ff2702755d9749cda571c6d6c2f3eb46&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=soundcloud" width="500"></iframe></p> <p>  </p> <p> In this latest line-up of BQ I have brought together some of my all time favorite musicians. The quartet now consists of of the ultra-melodic trumpet player <strong>Andreas Polyzogopoulos</strong> and the saxophonist <strong>Christophe Panzani,</strong> one of my favorite musicians who's use of guitar pedals gives the extra electronic/soundscape dimension that always was an element of this band. On the double bass we have the original bass player <strong>Mihail Ivanov</strong> with whom I have a playing record of almost 15 years.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Blazin_quartet_sacha_vucinic_medium_siz-1487455225" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/394866/Blazin_Quartet_SACHA_VUCINIC_MEDIUM_SIZ-1487455225.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p> Inspired by my move to Paris I have given the new album a (long) french name : <em>La mer, la pierre, la terre, l'oiseau</em>. For the non french speaking that would mean The sea, the stone, the earth, a bird.   </p> <p>  </p> <p> Despite the technical difficulty that trumpet player Andreas lives between Paris and Athens, bassist Mihail between Rome and Sofia and tenor saxophonist Christophe between Paris and Barcelona we have been meeting and playing (rarely rehearsing) and have recorded this new album with songs that I have written in the past years, modeling them and trying them out in different instrument settings and arrangements, until they reached their present shape.</p> <p>  </p> <p> We are releasing the album on the newly founded <strong>Coolabel,</strong> the label of a collective of european musicians called <a href="http://www.lecoolectif.org/">Le Coolectif.</a> It will be distributed to shops through <strong>Absilone</strong> <strong>Distribution</strong>.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="304" src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FewsrZlZuTCA%3Fwmode%3Dopaque%26feature%3Doembed&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DewsrZlZuTCA&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FewsrZlZuTCA%2Fhqdefault.jpg&amp;key=ff2702755d9749cda571c6d6c2f3eb46&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=youtube" width="540"></iframe></p> <p>  </p> <p> <u>To accommodate the different musical needs I've invited some guests.</u> I was inspired by guitarist <strong>Federico Casagrande</strong>'s playing and invited him to record on 4 of the 10 tracks. On 3 tracks I invited the inventive bassist <strong>Marc Buronfosse</strong> to play the Fender VI instrument, giving a special electric color to those tunes. Since I wanted to play a song (as in sung by a singer), I invited the young Macedonian <strong>Jovana Krstevska</strong> to sing it. Finally, for the opening track in which I wanted electric bass I invited <strong>Timothée Robert,</strong> a wonderful bass player that I play in one of my other groups, <em>The 3 Moons</em>.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Photo_guests-1487455638" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/394867/photo_guests-1487455638.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p> Further, while staying with friends in New York in 2016 I overdubbed <strong>Kamila Marcinkowska-Prasad</strong> on renaissance bassoon (you didn't expect this one, right?) and <strong>Noemy Gagnon-Lafrenais</strong> on renaissance violin on the tune <em>Het Eind</em>, that originally I wrote for a film.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The album was recorded by <strong>Antoine Karacostas</strong> in the studio <em>Aeronef</em> in Paris, mixed by <strong>Janek Busse </strong>at the <em>Sugar Candy Mountain Studio</em> in Poland and mastered by <strong>Vangelis Katsoulis</strong> in Athens, Greece. </p> <p>  </p> <p> The album will be released on the date of the album release concert, <strong><u>May 18th in the club Sunset, in Paris</u></strong>. Sending out of the pre-sale CDs and other rewards will start at the end of this campaign, just before of our pre-sale album tour in Serbia beginning of April. </p> <p>  </p> <p> Looking forward to get in contact, through the music or personally.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Thank you!</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> Srdjan</p>