Full Circle
Friday, September 19, 2008 at 01:29PM Yesterday the space-time continuum swallowed itself. Perhaps it was that supercollider creating a black hole or a tesseract or something. Whatever its cause, the snake was clearly eating it’s own tail yesterday.
I rarely thumb through the Time Out listings for jazz clubs, but I had already read the rest of the magazine . . . and I had time to kill. To my astonishment and wonder I read that Bojan Zulfikarpasic was listed to play that night in New York. That’s when the aforementioned singularity occurred.
Let me start at the beginning. In 1986 I traveled abroad for the first time as part of the Blue Lake in Bavaria summer music tour. I was in the percussion section of a concert band made up of youth from the US and Europe (roughly 50/50 of each). In addition there was a jazz band that traveled with us. We rehearsed for 2 weeks near a town called Rottenbuch, then toured Germany and Denmark for another 2 weeks. (I suppose the use of the word ‘fortnight’ would have rendered the preceding sentence more artful, but I couldn’t bear it.) It was a transformative summer in many respects—there was a first kiss and the learning to drink coffee—but I never keep in touch with anyone from that group. Though we probably had a total of 2 conversations (if that) Bojan made an impression, and Zulfikarpasic is not a name one easily forgets.
Bojan was from Yugoslavia (a country I hadn’t even heard of at the time), and was not demonstrative. I don’t remember him speaking much. But I remember him playing piano. He played piano in a way that was entirely foreign to me. I’d taken lessons for 10 years by that time and could get by, but Bojan was playing something I’d never heard before: jazz. I don’t mean that I’d never heard a ‘jazz’ piano before, but this was different. He was composing on the spot. He knew every standard in every key. I could sit and watch him for hours (and did).
When I got back to the states I told my mom about it, and she made some phone calls. If this was my new passion, then she was going to get me lessons. It was probably a year later before I started in earnest, but the memory didn’t wane: it waxed. I tried to buy records that could bring me back to that place, but it all sounded either overproduced or sterile. One thing led to another and I slowly learned to re-learn my instrument. Slowly and arduously. I was clearly not a natural. Even so, I chose jazz as my major and studied it as best I could.
I began listening to Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, McCoy Tyner . . . but Bojan had a special place. I wondered how he had been essentially my age and yet playing like he’d lived several lifetimes. I wondered if my mind had been playing tricks on me, and maybe he wasn’t really what I’d remembered. I remember thinking about him again around the time of Bosnian war. He was the only thing I new about Yugoslavia, so I wondered if he survived.
Then yesterday. Apparently he was alive. And well. And playing in New York. I went to see him and, I am happy to report, he plays with the same consummate energy I’d remembered. He’s recorded several CDs (available on itunes) and has a thriving career in Europe. He lives in Paris. To call him ‘good’ is an understatement. He recently won an award the claims to be for ‘the best jazz musician in Europe’, which is pretty broad. As a jazz musician, there are really only two challenges: 1) can you play what you hear; and 2) do you hear something interesting? This guy hears things that fall in the cracks, and he uses his technique to dig them out. Never flashy for its own sake, I witnessed a left hand that was frightening.
Yes, I said ‘hello’ and gave him a much-abbreviated version of this anecdote. He was freaked out, of course, and totally affable. Perhaps we’ll try to keep in touch. After all, once you’ve traveled Germany in a matching baby-blue polo shirt with someone, there’s a kind of a bond.
Reader Comments (1)
I was on the same tour in 1986 and played bass in the jazz band. I've lived in London most of the time since then and haven't seen Bojan since, but I learned a lot from working with him even then. He said to me: "you should practice more". Which is just as true today as it was then...