Virtuoso Rosenwinkel and local musicians join in the jazz

The jazz virtuoso, Kurt Rosenwinkel, has built the next musical narrative at the Prishtina Jazz Festival. His clean tone and pleasant phrasing together with Doug Weiss on double bass and Joost van Schaik on drums, have brought beautiful musical taste to the audience in Pristina for the first time.

Pleasant sounds come from confident melodic touches. The attention of the entire audience is captured by the sounds that start with a solo playing by the American jazz guitarist and composer, Rosenwinkel. The performance hall of the "Oda" theater was completely full. The trio's performance transports the listener to the jazz of the 90s. Exactly with the original works and not only.

They played the works "Synthetics", "B Blues" and "Aurora" by Kurt Rosenwinkel, all written during the 90s. The repertoire included "A shifting star" from the album "Star of Jupiter" from 2012.

"We're playing standard music, modern jazz, pieces from the American repertoire, as well as some original pieces," said Rosenwinkel.

Rosenwinkel is an acclaimed and influential jazz instrumentalist. He is considered one of the most important musicians of his generation. He has spent decades developing distinctive sounds that have captivated audiences around the world.

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Astrit Stafai, who owns many instruments, including the guitar, said that Rosenwinkel brought the magic of New York to Pristina.

"I enjoyed the magic of guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, who really brought us a piece of New York between Pristina. I think that the comments are excessive, I hope that in the future the festival will bring us artists of such caliber, so that we can enjoy beautiful music, but also be educated as a public in general. I hope it will become a tradition to have an audience in larger numbers where we can enjoy beautiful music and world-wide art", declared Stafai.

Visar Kuçi, who owns different instruments such as violin, contrabass, guitar and bass guitar, has said that he still plays with the last two precisely because of the influence of Kurt Rosenwinkel. 

"Kurt Rosenwinkel, for me personally, is one of my heroes, maybe because of him, I still play the guitar. I followed him, I listened to him a lot, I have all his albums, all his CDs, I am a huge fan of Kurt Rosenwinkel and it is very lucky that he came to Pristina. It's the first time I've seen it 'live', even in Pristina. This is a gift to me that Jazz Fest has given this concert. The concert was fantastic."

The duo Xhaferi and Mehmeti played two works before the performance of the trio from New York. They are harmonized so that sometimes one and sometimes the other get the primacy of the game.

This year's edition of "Prishtina Jazz Festival" was closed by four music groups with local artists. They were a kind of reflection of the jazz scene in Kosovo. If you consider the "Kos Jazz" concert, it looks great. Such was their game in the "Oda" theater. But the lack of jazz music academy has been raised as an issue for the future of this musical genre in the country.

The first part was by the band "Sheki & Friends". They played four works, two of them jazz-standard works by Duke Ellington and two other original works by Hoxha - "Prishtina Blues", as well as the reworking of "I'm drunk", as Hoxha himself has shown.

"There were two original works, a total of four compositions, two of them well-known standards that all jazzmen know. I also browsed my album and performed 'Kosova blues' that I recorded in 1999 and until then there was no Albanian jazz album. I dedicated it to Kosovo, as Kosovo was suffering. I arranged the second part a week ago. Yesterday we tried it for the first time as our pianist Ilirian Ahmeti, who is only 20 years old, lives in Vienna and is a jazz pianist in Vienna. So we tried it and with the introduction that it was, no one could know what the work is about, because I processed it in that way".

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Kejdi Barbullushi and his band played the original jazz of the 40s and 50s.

"It was more of an American program, we didn't play any original pieces. We had a trio format, there was a lot of freedom for each, but always sticking to the structure of the parts. All were American pieces by different composers."

The unique spirit of jazz music at Monday's concert was Liburn Jupoll's performance space with electronic music, audio coverage in the piece and piano playing.

Jupolli has shown that the works were completely original. He said that he is still working on some of the pieces, which he performed, while he appreciated it as a type of music that is rarely found in Kosovo. 

"For many years, the festival has inspired different types of jazz. Jazz is very broad. From the beginnings of jazz to today we have several different types that have developed. A very large jazz scene, which is not very developed in the Balkans, is 'free jazz', a part of it is then 'fusion' and some other styles, which you find little by little in the jazz music of Kosovo, so this has been more or less in that vein. Within this mini-concert are some pieces that are not yet finished, meant to be for the band, which I expect to develop in the meantime. It is material from the period when I was in France (2017), which remained unfinished. It's a kind of kaleidoscope of ideas that I've collected for today's audience."

Bajri has appreciated Jupolli's music as unique. He expressed his happiness that the festival is continuing after a decade of interruption of the event, which he led.

"It has been a long time since the last edition of the first group of concerts from 2005-2014 was held. Armend decided to continue. This is the second edition, I hope it continues in the future. I thank the institutions that have supported this festival. Taking into account the success of this edition, which is not difficult to notice, I believe that people who are in institutions will support such a cultural organization that is useful for the city. Such a festival not only enriches the cultural life of the capital, but also gives young musicians the opportunity to get to know new music, to create friendships with foreign artists".

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In the last part of the concert, "Visar Kuçi Trio" performed. He started with the works "104" and "August" which had a melancholic introduction. The trio also performed the work "Kurtulus", which Kuçi has shown that he wrote based on a neighborhood of Istanbul where he lived briefly. He called those of the work "Archaic" archaic sounds, while in the work "Enisa" they were joined by Dukagjin Muhaxheri with saxophone. They are original works by Visar Kuçi, who played them on guitar in this concert.

Five concerts this year have built the 12th edition of the Jazz Festival in Pristina. They brought the brilliant image in five days, from November 14 to 18.