(Review by Ann Alex)
Jelena Jovovic comes from Serbia and has studied at universities
in Belgrade and Austria. A vocal clinician and lecturer who has sung with Mark
Murphy and Sheila Jordan, as well as appearing at festivals and touring with her own
quintet. Heartbeat, her first album as
leader, comprises six original songs and four tracks of existing tunes to which
Ms Jovovic has written lyrics.
The Countless Stars interested me as I like World
Music, and this included Eastern European throat music, a very deep male voice
doing a rumbling chant, a jazz tune with brass and drums, and a song about
stars. Little Freddie Steps (tune by Claus Raible) was an entertaining
song about drumming to free the planet; the CD ended well with Pools (Tune
by Don Grolnick) a song about the meeting of river and ocean, with staccato
stops and starts and a basic Latin rhythm, lots of music from the vibes, and
ending with the sound of flowing water.
Other tracks were entitled Paladin; Heartbeat; Bubu's
Song; Sweet Music; Time Is Here; Mad In Heaven. Not sure what to say about
these tracks, definitely jazz but I was longing for 'hooks' to get a better
grip on the music and lyrics. Perhaps it's simply a different style of jazz and
lyrics,
Heartbeat was released on June 7 and is available from
the usual sources.
Ann Alex
Jelena Jovovic (vocals); Vasil Hadzimanov (piano, Rhodes); Milan
Nikolic (bass); Vladimir Kostadinovic (drums); Rastko Obradovic (tenor sax); Strahinja
Banovic (trumpet, 3 tracks) also on various tracks: Milos Branisavljevic
(vibes); Branco Trijic (guitar); Dusan Novakov (drums); Stjepko Gut (trumpet);
Milos Nikolic (trumpet/trombone); Tom Fedja Franklin, Bojan Ivkovic (perc);
Srdjan Markovic, Ivana Vukmirovic, Llija Mihailovic (backing vocals); Oleg
Kireyev (Tatar throat singing)
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