A Concert of the Jazz-Band That Overcomes the Balkan Frames
The jazz-guitarist Toni Kitanovski and his actual co-workers Aleksandar Sekulovski and Oliver Josifovski, along with the inspiring guest performances of Vasil Hadzimanov and Sasho Serafimov, affirmed themselves as a virtuous band
#1 With the aura as one of the rare Macedonian jazz-musicians known worldwide and with the credit of a man who gain his musical education in Berkeley, Boston – USA, Toni Kitanovski, on 21st of February didn’t achieved to get a full Universal Hall in Skopje with audience. Although, thanks to the solid media covering, the concert was attended by the true jazz-lovers in Macedonia, as many as on the regular “Skopje Jazz Festival” evenings. So, quite enough for a “hot” atmosphere in the freezing Hall that night (?!).
In such conditions, Kitanovski and his band of jazz-musicians showed that they can rise above the reality and to offer a concert to be talked about for a long time. Namely, this concert proved the fact that Kitanovski (the author, arranger…), in the personalities of Aleksandar Sekulovski and Oliver Josifovski (former members of the known Macedonian jazz-band “Foltin”), did find the exact musicians with which he can enter in a quite different, much brighter and much more lucid sound dimension where the search/quest liberation “rate” isn’t conditioned by anything. And when in that “open play” with the music and the music instruments enter the pianist Vasil Hadzimanov (the old friend of Kitanovski from Berkeley with his own jazz-band in Belgrade) and Sasho Serafimov (the experts say that he’s the one of the most talented Macedonian saxophone players), one can be happy to listen to a band that can bare the quality and the comparison with the most of the jazz-celebrities in Europe and world-wide.
And what’s even more important, Kitanovski and his band, offered – at the first sight – various and picturesque (with a great groove, ballads, rege, even ethno-music…), but also amazingly communicative program: considering the names of the music numbers (“Idriz Mohamed”, “Ornet Coleman“, etc…) that was even a kind of an honour to the world’s jazz-celebrities, but also the program wrapped in the warm tones and sounds that make you to accept the concept where the jazz isn’t academic even a little bit, but much more a free music form that will make you dance. Especially the music number “Ed Blackwell”, which, by the way, thanks to the smart advertising video that was broadcasted through the media, definitely became a full-blooded hit in which one can recognize “very, very much music” and much organic rhythm. And, when we talk about jazz, we must admit that it is a rare thing to happen…