East of West enlists Romano Crivici to record Balkan-influenced instrumental jazz album entitled “Pastorale”
Here’s an interesting fact for you: Romano Crivici is one of Australia’s only contemporary composers who is also a recognised contemporary classical performer on both violin and piano. It seems impossible to reach that kind of success with one classical instrument, much less two.
This month, Romano joins forces with Australian instrumental trio East of West. The trio consists of Bosnian-born band leader and composer, Goran Gajić on Double Bass, as well as Philip Griffin on Oud and Malindi Morris on Percussion. The trio masterfully combine elements of traditional jazz with Balkan-influenced rhythms and interspersed with moments of mesmerising musical sparseness.
This past year Goran and Romano set out on making a new album of atmospheric compositions and improvisations entitled Pastorale. “This album began with a small upright piano being crammed into the back of our station wagon,” explains Goran when talking about the project’s origin. “Malindi was on a mission to buy a piano that could fit in our tiny apartment, and after visiting and rejecting a number of them, she found a beautiful old spinet upright.”
“Malindi called the owner,” continues Goran, “and we drove to the suburbs, walked behind the house — and there was the piano, sitting on the grass, covered in a tarpaulin, in the middle of the rainy, sweaty Brisbane summer. Our hearts sank deeper than our feet into the suburban floodplain mud. The owner’s ex had turfed the piano and all his music gear out of the house to the mercy of the subtropical summer weather. He offered it to us for zero dollars. Malindi bargained the price up, three of us somehow loaded it into the back of our Subaru Forester and we took it home. The piano tuner worked hard to give the piano back some self-respect, and on it I sketched out the compositions on this album which were played by the remarkable Romano Crivici alongside East of West’s oud, double bass and percussion. We recorded on a beautiful Steinway piano with an equally interesting story, but we’ll leave that for another time.”
“When composing a piece of music,” says Gajić, “I begin with a kernel of an idea – something that appears during practice, daily life or even in the middle of the night. I start developing the motif, and then decide if it is going to work for the trio or if it’s more suited to other projects. The pieces on Pastorale were pieces that asked for another element, which I felt to be piano, and after a long time listening to many pianists, I heard Romano playing and immediately realised he was the pianist I wanted to work with on these pieces.”
The result is a generously open composition that unfolds over 40 minutes and set over 6 tracks. Throughout the album there is space to breath in a way that shifts and builds tension throughout. Romano’s keys give the album a cinematic quality while Goran’s bass and Malindi’s percussion creates a kind of orchestral foundation for each arrangement.
Have a listen to “Takt,” the 4th track from the album below to give you an idea of the sound. If you like what you hear, head over to the East of West Bandcamp page to pre-order the full album version of Pastorale (available July 31st).
East of West – Takt (feat. Romano Crivici)
Pastorale includes:
Philip Griffin on oud
Malindi Morris on percussion
Goran Gajić on double bass
Romano Crivici on piano
Engineered by Siiri Metsar
