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by John Thomas
FROM THE BEGINNING – www.matijadedic.com.
CD1: From the Beginning; Mr. Handy; ‘Round
Midnight; W.A.M; Angela; You Are Too Beautiful.
CD2: Prelude to a Kiss; Nardis; Marina’s Dilemma;
Lush Life; Bye Bye Blackbird; Dr. A PERSONNEL:
Matija Dedic, piano; Larry Grenadier,bass; Jeff Ballard, drums
36 year-old Matija Dedic is a star in the Eastern European jazz scene, particularly in his home country of Croatia, where he has won numerous awards throughout the past 10 years or so. He was also one of 11 finalists in the 2002 Montreux Jazz Piano Competition. When you hear him play, it is no surprise why – he’s got tons of chops and a very spontaneous approach to be as general as I can in this opening paragraph. Dedic is also the son of father Arsen Dedic, Croatian singer/songwriter and poet, and mother Gabi Novak, a famous Croatian pop-singer who even sang with Louis Armstrong.
For From the Beginning, Matija has hired Brad Mehldau’s rhythm section – Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums – also Mark Turner’s rhythm section in the trio group Fly. This is a bold move on Dedic’s part since fans of these two players are used to hearing them play in groups where the third person (Mehldau or Turner) has developed an almost telepathic rapport with them. But Ballard and Grenadier are such incredible and empathetic musicians, that they sound as if they’ve been playing with Dedic for a long time. Dedic’s phrasing is unpredictable and exciting, and he has a very definite time-feel that is all his own – a little bit quirky and sometimes frantic, but in an intentional way. If you are looking for swing or groove, this might not be your album – although he can do that too, and we he does, you realize how versatile of a player he is. Dedic also writes some very cool and complex arrangements with exciting twists, turns and breaks. I think if the group had more experience together, the groove would be much deeper, but for an initial effort, wow!
Dedic chose a nice mixture of standards to mix in with some well-crafted and memorable originals. This includes “Round Midnight,” which he gives a rousing high energy solo interpretation, and “Prelude to a Kiss,” which is given an andante cool swing. Although the head is given a complex arrangement, the musicians are all in their comfort zones on this standard and Grenadier and Ballard take some memorable solos. Other standards include “You Are Too Beautiful,” and “Nardis,” which is given a straight and funky drum and bass groove. Dedic makes great use of space on this tune, keeping the listeners ears wide open and thirsting for the next phrase. “Lush Life,” and “Bye, Bye Blackbird” are on the second of the two CDs. The way Grenadier and Dedic simultaneously share the melody and improvisation on the latter tune is one of the highlights on the album. The group chemistry is at its highest on this track. Grenadier has an uncanny ability to be both supportive and independent at the same time. Dedic closes out the album with a beautiful ballad of his own entitled Dr. A performed solo – this one will pull on the heart strings, leaving you in a somewhat sullen and reflective mood.
Dedic is an exciting and multi-faceted player who should cross the Atlantic much more often. If this group was a working band, I believe the results could be as critically praised as that of the other groups this rhythm section has been associated with.
MD in NYC
by Dan McClenagham
Pianist Matija Dedic's MD in NYC tiptoes into existence on a delicate rhythm, joined in short order by a sprinkling of crystalline notes in the melody, with a whisper of brushes and spare but assertive bass lines. "Her Name" is one of the pianist's five originals in the set, and has a wistful reverence that speaks, perhaps, to a yearning infatuation, bringing to mind the artistry of Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock.
The Croatian-born musician has created a superb piano trio outing, a pared down approach that he augments very adeptly with synthesizers. "Slawenskya," another original, features a subtle electric cool breeze undertone enhancing the harmony, leading into the brightly-swinging trio tune,"Update."
Hancock's much-covered "Maiden Voyage" has never been covered better. It is a spare and understated rendition from Dedic and his trio mates, with eerie hints of synthesizer washes huffing like wind blowing through the eaves, a sound leaning just over the edge of conscious perception. The longest tune of the set at just over ten minutes—with its deft trio interplay and a brief-but- marvelous bass solo—it is the CD's centerpiece and masterpiece.
Miles Davis's "Blue in Green" opens at a slow and deliberate pace, piano trio only, until Dedic brings a lush string arrangement into the mix, making a Kind of Blue (Columbia Records, 1959) "with strings" outing seem a very interesting potential project.
Dedic's "Cheekee Chicks" features a funky dance groove and electric piano; and Sting's "Fragile" is another trio affair, a floating six minutes of loveliness and trio cohesion, followed by the more stately and muscular Dedic-penned "Jungle Blues." Concluding the CD, Toby Gad's "If I Were a Boy," with it's whirring synthesizer orchestration, has the feel of a soundtrack to a movie with a pastoral backdrop.
MD in NYC introduces a very talented and versatile artist in Matija Dedic.
MUSIC REVIEW: Matija Dedic, “MD in NYC”
by Thomas Conrad, Stereophile
Jazz has become a truly international art form in the new millennium, and some of its most creative players now come from places like Zagreb, Croatia. What makes Matija Dedic special is his touch and the way his poetic concept unfolds and deepens over the course of an album. Dedic is as seductive as Tord Gustavsen. The opening of the first track here, “Her Name,” could be Gustavsen. It has that hush, the keys barely touched, the simple incantatory repetitions becoming complex mysteries.
But Dedic is a romantic with wide dynamic range. Pieces like “Update” and “Cheekee Chicks” and “Jungle Blues” are rhythmically intricate and infectious and intense. Dedic sometimes plays Fender Rhodes, and is a deft manipulator of electronics, which he uses on most tracks to add colors to his trio music and extend its depth of field.
The trio here is not a working band. Dedic made this record in Manhattan with one of New York’s best young rhythm sections, Vicente Archer and Kendrick Scott. Archer sounds like he has been weaving bass rituals through Dedic’s piano lines for 20 years.
The tunes mentioned above are originals. Dedic writes lines that linger in one’s tonal memory. Yet the high points of this album are four extraordinary covers, on which Dedic improvises like a composer. Toby Gad’s “If I Were A Boy,” a hit for Beyoncé, is resonant and solemn, a secular prayer. Many jazz musicians have played “Maiden Voyage.” Dedic’s version has quiet rapture. For over ten minutes, he bathes new soft light on the crystal core of Herbie Hancock’s melody. Miles Davis’ “Blue In Green” is so slow it seems to hover in place. Dedic is a conjurer who works in the medium of mood like a painter works in oils. Vicente Archer is stark and profound on “Blue In Green,” and the synthesized string orchestra is like a darkening sky. “Fragile” translates Sting’s human cry, his call, into non-verbal musical language and it becomes more universal.
MUSIC REVIEW: Matija Dedic, “MD in NYC”
by Thomas R. Erdmann, Jazz Review
" ***** 5-Stars "
Zagreb Croatia native, pianist and composer Matija Dedic earned a collegiate degree from the Jazz Academy in Graz, Austria. Dedic comes from a musical family; his father received musical awards and his mom sang with Louis Armstrong and Phil Woods. Some of Dedic's piano teachers have included jazz stalwarts Hal Galper and Barry Harris. Among the musicians Dedic has played with are Benny Golson, Kenny Burrell, Roy Haynes, Alvin Queen, Lenny White and Larry Grenadier. As a composer Dedic has written for television, the theatre and some Croatian pop artists. M.D. in NYC is his second release as a leader.
This recording captures this exceptionally fine musician in league with bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Kendrick Scott. Together the three musicians have crafted a wonderfully tender, yet musically driving and hypnotic musically astute document. The 10 tracks, six Dedic originals as well as a few jazz standards and a couple of pop tunes, are all performed in one of the most wonderfully empathetic jazz piano trio sessions one will ever hear.
Highlights include the wonderfully powerful Dedic original "Slawenskaya." The piece builds steam as Dedic proposes phrase after phrase of disparate ideas which he eventually transforms into a solidly functioning intermeshed whole. The energy gradually builds throughout the five minutes of the track until all three musicians are involved in a series of skitterish and metrically complex rhythmic punctuations they attack with the gusto of a seriously parched man drinking water for the first time in a year.
At other times this ensemble settles into music that is all about the beauty of a single line. Dedic's retransformation of Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" becomes not so much homage as a way of viewing the composition through a prism. All of the individual colors of Hancock's composition, harmonic and melodic, are delicately pulled apart, piece by piece, line by line, in such a sublime manner one would think the three musicians are playing freely throughout. Archer's solo, done in one of the most subtle double-time manners ever recorded, is accentuated by Scott's light and oh-so-delicate percussion work while Dedic comps behind with figures that offer other suggestions of vistas Archer might want to explore. That it all comes together in such a marvelous manner is a testament to the excellence of all involved.
The brave and softly understated use of synth atmospherics at crucial moments in different compositions, not as color or in a harmonic sense, but instead to create a depth of background setting, is so perfectly balanced with the sublime ensemble interplay it's impossible to think of this music without those washes. This is, no doubt, one of the top 10 discs of 2011.
MUSIC REVIEW: Matija Dedic, “MD in NYC”
by David Franklin, Cadence
Matija Dedic is a 38-year-old Croatian piano virtuoso who has played around the world with leading Jazz performers, including a number of well-known Americans, and won numerous awards world-wide. Bassist Archer and drummer Scott both boast extensive, impressive credentials. The modern mainstream MD in NYC is Dedic’s second album and the first with these two fine sidemen.
To be sure, Dedic displays a mastery of his instrument. His elegant touch produces a beautiful sound and his fabulous technique permits him to execute phenomenal phrases. But more than that, he brings something out of the ordinary to the venerable piano trio. He uses a synthesizer to provide programmatic ambiance or background accompaniment to his acoustic (and occasionally electric) piano performances. The ensemble’s rendering of Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” for example, is enhanced by quiet, ethereal synth sounds in the background, while the synthesizer mimics a fired-up soprano saxophone in introducing Dedic’s “Jungle Blues.” Using it on his jaunty “Cheekee Chicks,” the leader generates a “rock guitar” solo to follow his earlier acoustic and electric piano choruses. And it provides a lovely string orchestra setting for “Blue in Green.”
But even without the unusual instrumentation, this disc would be worthwhile for the top-notch playing by all parties. At one point in “Maiden Voyage,” Dedic improvises separate but complementary melodies in his two hands. And in “Jungle Blues” he bangs out an incendiary two-fisted passage. “Blue in Green,” Sting’s “Fragile,” and Dedic’s “Her Name” are especially noteworthy for the pianist’s warm sound and inventive melodicism.
MUSIC REVIEW: Matija Dedic, “MD in NYC”
by Ric Bang, Jazz Scan
This album demonstrates anew that jazz truly is an international art. Matija Dedic, born in Croatia in 1973, began to play classical piano at age 5: a common path for Eastern European music students. He had broadened his interests by his 18th birthday, and he subsequently entered the Graz Jazz Academy. After graduation, he delivered his style of jazz while touring throughout Europe, Scandinavia, South America and the United States. He has worked with his own groups and many others, writes music for TV and theater, and often plays with touring pop stars.
MD in NYC was recorded during a 2009 stay in the Big Apple. Dedic's basic trio — in which he plays both piano and Fender Rhodes — includes bassist Vincent Archer and drummer Kendrick Scott. That core group is backed on several tracks by an unidentified string section.
Dedic wrote six of the 10 compositions; the rest are covers of tunes from Herbie Hancock ("Maiden Voyage"), Miles Davis ("Blue in Green"), Sting ("Fragile") and Toby Gad ("If I Were a Boy"). All are done at near balladic, but softly swinging tempos.
You can always tell when a pianist has had classical training. Jazz artists often are essentially one-handed; the right hand establishes the melodic line and is the "innovator" ... which is to say, the hand that produces the solo lines that the mind creates. The left hand plays a "supporting" role, maintaining the chord structure and providing emphasis where appropriate.
That isn’t the case with Dedic. Both hands are intensely involved at all times; sometimes you'd swear that two solo lines are occurring simultaneously. Additionally, one is "forced" (in a very positive way!) to listen intently to this album, to catch everything; as a result, the tunes seem to just fly past. A 5-minute track is over before you want it to end.
And that's the case with every track on this album. It’s beautiful, pensive, attention-getting and memorable jazz. Dedic is a talent to be reckoned with!
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