Szilárd Mezei International Improvisers Ensemble - Jugoplasztika (from double CD "Karszt", 2013, Slam Productions, SLAMCD 550)

Composition by Szilárd Mezei

Solos: Kováts, Pozsár, Grip, Burka, Ittzés, Meggyes, Rašković

Szilárd MEZEI – viola, lead
Bogdan RANKOVIĆ – clarinet, bass clarinet, alto sax,
Péter BEDE – clarinet, tenor sax, alto sax
Gergő KOVÁTS – tenor sax, soprano sax
Béla BURÁNY – baritone sax
Ádám MEGGYES – trumpet
Branislav AKSIN – trombone
Jens BALDER – trombone
Laura LÉVAY-AKSIN – flute, piccolo
Gergely ITTZÉS – flute, alto flute, bass flute, piccolo
Andrea BERENDIKA – flute, alto flute, piccolo
Máté POZSÁR – piano
Jon HEMMERSAM – acoustic guitar
Tijana STANKOVIĆ - violin
Albert MÁRKOS – violoncello
Zoltán CSÁNYI – double bass
Ervin MALINA - double bass
Ernő HOCK – double bass
Joel GRIP – double bass
Ivan BURKA - marimba
Jelena RASKOVIĆ – vibraphone
Hunor G.SZABÓ – drums, percussion
István CSÍK – drums, percussion

Officially released at Slam Productions (SLAMCD 550): [ Ссылка ]

www.szilardmezei.net

Liner notes (by Andrew Choate):
You are inside a mountain. Solemnly immobile. Just like the mountain. Yes, avalanches.
Small tickles across your belly, under your arms. You are large and trapped. The mountain
just yearns. Its yearning moves you. You lean, you brace. Your arms frozen, waving, one
hand above your head, the other arm reaching. A feast of granite. You are not buried. You
are the size of, and inside, the mountain. Grass crashes on you. Rocks pit cliffs against you.
Waterfalls. Pools in the sky. Stop and drink. Ray of sunlight on your neck, no illusion, it’s all
echo, let it burn.
Dance granite. The voices you hear are bones. Internal drama. The rain is internal to the ear.
Bellybutton slab. The smell of wet rock. The sultry romance of soil. Hulking, elegant, rooted.
Traverse it? No, let it be you.
Twenty-three musicians, eight songs, one hundred and fifty-three minutes of music. Density.
And duration. Devotion. This release opens with the newest iteration of Mezei’s “Hep”. At fiftysix
minutes long, it has time to develop, slowly growing, casting rhythmic shadows over a flurry
of solos with the intensity of a laser, but wide, wider, widening. By the second disc, you finally
understand what it really feels like to go full bore. Tendrils of fevered learning from the Globe
Unity and Barry Guy Orchestras wrap around the body of native traditions distilled by the
jazz of György Szabados. Instincts noted, followed, blended, fermented, presented: music
carved and scarring. The piano playing of Máté Pozsár on “Kereg” perfectly represents this
sense: he’s going so fast over the keys that it seems he might not even be striking them, just
flinching in their direction. And yet the effect is the essence of inevitability: balance in a rush
is a rush. The natural variety of moods percolate through the coordination of instrumentation:
now flute and percussion, now brass and sax, now cello and guitar and without any vocalists
somehow constant singing. The monumentality of so many people moving as one but
being themselves: singular imaginations at work within focus. The ensemble arrangements
of Mingus and Ellington - how they took advantage of so many unique musicians - tangibly
inform this music, and the tradition extends. It’s not freewheeling, that’s now what our time
demands. It’s not rigid, that leaves us stuck. The swing is in the scrape of a string.
Andrew Choate

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