Interview with Davor Jordanovski: Music is and will always be present: Video

Jazz interview with jazz keyboardist Davor Jordanovski. An interview by email in writing. 

JazzBluesNews.Space: – First let’s start with where you grew up, and what got you interested in music?

Davor Jordanovski: – I was born in Skopje, Macedonia, but I spent my early childhood in Libya, in a very diverse and mixed community, so at very young age, I was exposed to music that all those people carried within them. I loved it!

JBN.S: – How did your sound evolve over time? What did you do to find and develop your sound?

DJ: – My musical journey started in Libya.  I spent most of my childhood there and was exposed to different cultures. We lived in a little village, outside of Benghazi, a city on the Mediterranean Sea, with families from all over corners of the world. Everyone spoke different languages and had different backgrounds. Our TV reflected this rich marbling. I learned how to speak Italian and French from my friends and by watching TV. Those early childhood musical influences are engrained on my mental and emotional hard drive, maybe not always in their original form, though I am still influenced by those sounds.

Then, in my teens, my family moved back to Macedonia, a crossroad of all kinds of cultures, situated in the middle of the Balkans, north of Greece, south of Serbia, east of Albania and west of Bulgaria. It is the centre of a few, very old countries, each with their own distinct culture. Macedonia has a population of little more than two million, half the size of downtown Toronto, Canada. Although demographically small, it is such a powerful musical meeting place.

And for the last 20 years, Toronto, Canada AKA the Melting Pot Of Cultures is my home.

JBN.S: – What practice routine or exercise have you developed to maintain and improve your current musical ability especially pertaining to rhythm?

DJ: – I am the owner of Big Bang Music Recording Studios, in Mississauga, Ontario, and my role as a Producer and a Musical director of several bands, stylistically very different, keeps me on my toes – there is not a day that passes by that I don’t play something. The rhythm part of it is in my blood. The Balkans are my soil.

JBN.S: – Which harmonies and harmonic patterns do you prefer now? You’re playing is very sensitive, deft, it’s smooth, and I’d say you drift more toward harmony than dissonance. There is some dissonance there, but you use it judiciously. Is that a conscious decision or again, is it just an output of what goes in?

DJ: – I don’t like following patterns. I’d rather pave my own way, if I can. But not every project allows me to do that.

In this case, it is exactly what you said – an output of what goes in: what the project I am working on is, who I am playing with and who, ultimately the listener is. A lot of my friends call me a cat/chameleon. Hmm… I am not really sure what they mean by that 🙂 LOL

JBN.S: – How to prevent disparate influences from coloring what you’re doing?

DJ: – By listening and reacting to what the other players are doing and being present and 100% in to the music. No shortcuts and no licks.

JBN.S: – What’s the balance in music between intellect and soul?

DJ: – Both things are two completely separate worlds. When performing, I prefer the latter. When producing, I try to find that magical thin crossing between the two. It is a game of hide and seek, every time.

JBN.S: – There’s a two-way relationship between audience and artist; you’re okay with giving the people what they want?

DJ: – It depends on what it is that I am doing, what the flavour of the night is, which project am I presenting. I am OK with both.

JBN.S: – Please any memories from gigs, jams, open acts and studio sessions which you’d like to share with us?

DJ: – There are a lot of fun memories and every gig has its own moments. It is the silly ones that always stick with you, and I am sure that every musician has enough stories to write a whole book. I would rather keep mine for myself, if you don’t mind.

JBN.S: – How can we get young people interested in jazz when most of the standard tunes are half a century old?

DJ: – Music evolves. Every genre has its life span, and that is ok.

Since the beginning of music, every era carried a different flavour with it.

We are lucky that we live in times where there are audible and visual recordings of most of the last centuries’ music and we can sneak peek into the past and see how it was done originally, literally – and not just to imagine if we are “interpreting Bach properly”.

Jazz will always be there, as well as the other genres of music. At time, one will be closer to the surface then the other, and vice versa.

JBN.S: – John Coltrane said that music was his spirit. How do you understand the spirit and the meaning of life?

DJ: – Music is and will always be present. We are all part of it, or IT is always part of us. A different level of consciousness that connects the past, the present and the future, it lets us communicate to each other from a distance, also in time.

JBN.S: – If you could change one thing in the musical world and it would become a reality, what would that be?

DJ: – We live in times of change, all the time! There are many things that can be improved. The good thing about today’s situation in the music world is that music is back in the musicians’ hands, and now  it is our responsibility. All of us are changing the course of music, one note at a time. Then there are some that do it single-handedly, multiple times in their lifetime, like Miles Davis did.

Personally, I try to stay open-hearted and true in my ways of passing the baton on to future generations, by adding a humbled portion of musical fuel – then, maybe something is going to stick…. Who knows…

JBN.S: – Who do you find yourself listening to these days?

DJ: – Mostly whatever I am working on at the moment. Most of the time it is my own music.

JBN.S: – Let’s take a trip with a time machine, so where and why would you really wanna go?

DJ: – My grandparents’ home in Skopje. In their living room. On their couch. Under a blanket, with a hot chocolate in my hands…. Circa 1980… Good times!

JBN.S: – I have been asking you so far, now may I have a question from yourself…

DJ: – I am curious, what was it that made you initiate this conversation with me?

JBN.S: – Thank you for answers. Your new CD about which there is nothing in this interview, because you did not agree to cooperate with us. In my opinion you simply do not need advertising and do not need …

JBN.S: – So putting that all together, how are you able to harness that now?

DJ: – I’d like to thank you for all these questions and for taking me back down the memory lane – I should take that trip more often.

Interview by Simon Sargsyan