Asphalt Calcutta by Yordan Kostov | Bruno Dozzi Tezza | Brenda Ohana

Unusual encounters often initiate strange results. Such is the case with the story preceding the recording of this album. In 2016 in Shanghai, Macedonian avantgarde musician Yordan Kostov was introduced to Brazilian vibraphonist and drummer Brenda Ohana, after which they began playing music together. In the following years, the collaboration expanded with other musicians stepping in from the local Shanghai and the international jazz scene. At the beginning of 2024, Kostov visited Paris (where Ohana now lives) and invited her to record several improvised pieces. They were missing a bassist to complete the rhythm section. Ohana suggested her friend, Brazilian bassist Bruno Dozzi Tezza, and shortly after their introduction, they all entered the Bopcity Studio in Paris, where, without previous rehearsals, this album was quickly recorded.

For the uninitiated this might sound like a romantic fiction, in which the protagonists are placed in a conveniently constructed mix of circumstances, guiding them towards building a strange cultural salad. However, for the restless Macedonian wanderer through the African-American, Balkan and Oriental music heritages, Yordan Kostov, this is his subconscious musical modus operandi. For years now, Kostov’s music can be described as a globetrotting jazz fusion sponge, which absorbs everything that is available to him at any given moment. On this album he takes a rare role of a pianist (his first choice is the accordion). The result is an album which testifies of a strange, time-spatial play with music, which in that short period of time had merged the influences from the Balkans, South and North America, India, the Far East and, of course, Paris, where this album was recorded.

The album’s focal and title composition, “Asphalt Calcutta”, is a reflection of the powerful influence that free improvisation has on contemporary creative music. It was recorded without rehearsals, without previously shared notation (which, of course, doesn’t exist); so, it is based on the intuition factor and the multiperspective possibilities and directions that arise from it. Although the title suggests that the initial inspiration stems from India’s vast musical wealth, it soon becomes evident that the absence of a main motif places this composition in the wide domain of free jazz tradition. However, “Asphalt Calcutta” can’t be placed in the loud, noisy and often atonal tradition/thread of free jazz (present, for example, on some of the albums of pianists Agustí Fernandez, Alexander von Schlippenbach etc.). Rather, it is more in tune with the tradition of collective improvisation, which tries to leave room for each musician to follow up on the other and propose directions that may or may not be followed. When you listen to it, that’s probably the most striking thing about this piece: the motifs come and go, and all three musicians play around them, while new motifs emerge, left to flow, dive and pop up throughout this 35-minute long free improv session. The beauty of the performance is reflected in its melodic fluidity, rhythmic complexity and freedom of simultaneous communication and interaction, which the musicians intuitively execute, while painting vibrant sound images. Listeners, on the other hand, will be rewarded to the extent of their readiness to award this improvisation with the attention that it deserves. Subsequently, it will enter their auditory interpretative apparatus, and after that no one can know the impressions it may trigger.

“Sendagi Boy” is a composition by Kostov which begins with him manually caressing the piano strings, accompanied by mellow support from Dozzi Tezza’s bass guitar. Shortly after, the orientally inspired piano motif starts. Then the theme continues with a finely-tuned collective improvisation, as if the musicians are regular collaborators. Kostov maneuvers skillfully around the main motif, Ohana follows him adequately, without venturing into unnecessary percussive exhibitions, and Dozzi Tezza’s bass tones are so gentle and warm, that they beg the question why electric bass guitar is not used more frequently in piano jazz trios. By the way, Sendagi is a residential district in Tokyo, in which Kostov often stays when he visits Tokyo.

“Mangit” is another Kostov composition, first recorded in 2023 in a sextet format with Vietnamese musicians. That version of the composition is named “Maglota”, although both names do not have a specific meaning. Unlike the original version which is a 20-minute Vietnamese-Balkan jazz fusion, played with traditional Vietnamese instruments (đàn bầu and t'rưng) and in which Kostov plays his “primary” instrument – the accordion, “Mangit” is adapted for a piano trio format and, as Kostov notes, it has noticeable influences from the Parisian cultural life. This composition most noticeably oscillates between the concepts and practices of preestablished structure and free improvisation. “Mangit” has a pronounced hypnotic, melancholic, murky, even elegiac arrangement, which probably explains why the urban environment of Paris is pointed out as an important impact on the feel of its performance. French traditions of skepticism, existentialism and deconstructivism have made an irreversible impact on the cultural life in Paris, and their common denominator is that consolation is one of life’s most unreachable aspirations.

World jazz fusion. This and the subgenres similar to it (ethno jazz, folk jazz fusion, oriental jazz...) can allude to a sort of equalized, leveled and uniform musical globalization. Perhaps, if we consistently follow Edward Said’s discourse, they stink of postcolonialism and stigmatizing orientalism and exoticism, where different “world” musics are swallowed by the might of Western jazz’s cultural appropriation. However, one can rarely come across such an unusual set of circumstances, mixtures and a creative group of musicians, that have managed to unite so many influences, times, places and people. – On this album we have one composition with influences from the Japanese tradition, another with a Vietnamese tone, and the title track, which clearly takes ques from the Indian music diaspora; all three were recorded in one of the main European cultural centers – Paris, with a Macedonian pianist and a Brazilian rhythm section. And at the base of it all, as Kostov asserts, is the African-American jazz improvisation. Even Kostov’s compositions (which are also recorded without previous rehearsals) serve more as a direction for free interpretation, rather than pieces that should be canonically performed. Therefore, “world jazz fusion” can sound exploitative and colonizing towards non-Western music traditions, when they are being subjugated from one center (jazz), whose “purpose” is to subordinate them, to incorporate them into itself and to monopolize different musical influences. That thesis is valid. However, Western cultural/musical appropriation (since the very beginning of African-American music) has also had a positive side: it does not assume that there is such a thing as a homogeneous and/or authentic musical tradition. All cultural traditions that assume that their histories are relatively clean and “uncontaminated” are, in fact, fascist, because they negate the plethora of sounds and voices which have undoubtedly influenced them. On the other hand, music traditions which recognize cultural appropriations as an inevitable and undeniable factor in cultural life, consider every music as it really is: constantly on the move, constantly “tarnished” by heterogeneous influences, constantly looking for new influences from which it would be continuously revitalized.

This album, of course, belongs to the latter tradition.


Further listening:

Yordan Kostov (2024) Kichobal: https://aksioma.bandcamp.com/album/kichobal
Yordan Kostov Ensemble (2021) Intertwining a Fugue: https://sjfrecords.bandcamp.com/album/intertwining-a-fugue
Yordan Kostov Quintet (2021) Come Back: https://pmgjazz.bandcamp.com/album/come-back
Avadarxi Quartet (2020) (Waiting at the) Turnstiles: https://kinggong.bandcamp.com/album/waiting-at-the-turnstiles
Yordan Kostov (2019) Sanfona de Grapa: https://pmgjazz.bandcamp.com/album/sanfona-de-grapa
Yordan Kostov & Andreas Günther (2018) Extravaganza Fantasi: https://kinggong.bandcamp.com/album/extravaganza-fantasi

AKSIOMA releases awkward music, at the crossroads between jazz, rock, noise, electronica and all their experimental, improvisational and avant-garde variants. Primarily focused on the new vibrant Macedonian instrumental music scene.

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