Koren

Born out of encounters between field songs, grand opera and Latin music in a New Orleans port (among other things), jazz has always rifled the pockets of whatever wayside music it chanced upon, and profited artistically from its loot. This incarnation, led by Bulgarian-Romanian vocalist Catarov, and driven by crystalline piano, follows a lyrical European reinvention of jazz pioneered by the likes of ECM, mixing in, almost unnoticeably for most of the time, the band's influence from their South Eastern European backgrounds. Indeed, it sounds less influenced by the chromatically inflected modes used in the area's folk and pop music than, say, Sketches of Spain or even Coltrane's experiments of the 1960s. Some evidence of the group's background does occasionally surface: irregular time signatures draw on the tradition of the Western Balkans and beyond, while Catarov's voice, often floating high and pure above the band's thoughtful backing sometimes draws on a darkness reminiscent of Roma singers Džansever or Ljiljana Buttler. It's a refreshing take on a familiar sound.