Jasna Jovićević Quinary – Simple Joy (33 Jazz Records)
Unique blend of avant-garde and chamber jazz with a hint of local traditions
Jasna Jovićević is a truly unique figure on the Serbian jazz scene, and her artistic development is certainly not a typical one for this region. To begin with, I will quote the official information from her biography: Her academic journey began with a BA in Jazz Saxophone Performance and Teaching from the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest. She furthered her studies with an MA in Music Composition from York University in Toronto and culminated in a Ph.D. in Contemporary Arts and Media from Singidunum University in Belgrade, specializing in transdisciplinary studies.
Additionally, she completed formal yoga teacher training at the Bihar School of Yoga in Rikhia, India, in 2010, and she’s very active in that line of work. This is not merely a side note, since elements of Hindu spirituality can be found in many aspects of her musical output—not only in the titles of compositions or albums, but also in the way they are structurally organized, conceived as complex artistic wholes.
Although over the years she has formed several interesting international ensembles—such as the classic free-jazz trio with Ksawery Wojcinski (double bass) and Silvester Miklos (drums), or the Serbian-Austrian improvisational trio ANJALI with Annette Giesriegl (vocals, electronics) and Elisabeth Harnik (piano, objects)—in my opinion her key project is definitely Quinary, which has released three albums so far.
Strictly speaking, however, this is not entirely precise. The first album in this sequence, Flow Vertical, was not labeled as Quinary but as the Jasna Jovićević Sextet. What matters far more is that this release laid the foundations of Jasna’s now recognizable blend of chamber and avant-garde jazz. In the liner notes she wrote that it was “conceptual program music, divided according to psychic centers in the human body.” Or, more musically indicative: it was written for string trio, bassoon, percussions, saxophones, bass clarinet, spacedrum, and voice. On the one hand, she clearly oriented herself toward unconventional jazz lineups; on the other, she challenged our usual perceptions even of chamber jazz, combining reeds, spacedrum, and her voice as an instrumentalist, and using them alternately according to the needs of the compositions. In this way, she managed to shape a very distinctive authorial voice that is simultaneously edgy and highly subtle and gentle—often within the very same pieces.
When she recorded the album Sounding Solitude and officially formed Quinary, it essentially built upon these foundations, although certain personnel changes did occur within the band. Sounding Solitude was based on her personal experience of living through the pandemic and isolation, and on interacting with her own fears rather than seeking social comfort. The musical fragments of the album were structured around the Kübler-Ross model of grief, which consists of five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. To these, she added the daily spiritual practice of Sadhana, a combination of meditative techniques. Each of the six compositions is dedicated to one of these states.
Over the years, I have grown accustomed to Jasna’s style as a listener. When she sent me the material recorded for the new album Simple Joy several months ago, I initially failed to find the right listening rhythm. I put the music aside, until she later informed me that she had found a label and that the album would enter the public sphere in early 2026. I listened again, and this time everything fell into place. This gap in listening experience reminds us that the perception of a particular music can vary significantly depending on the circumstances in which we hear it: what resonates with us at a given moment, our mood, or perhaps simple fatigue; what we listened to previously, and what we expect from a particular artist.
At one point, I also became a victim of my own expectations as a listener; once again, Jasna made a leap and stepped outside her comfort zone. Her music remains within the framework of avant-garde jazz meets chamber music references, but this time the chamber component comes even more strongly to the fore.
The lineup has once again been slightly adjusted, and on this release Quinary consists of (alongside Jasna, who plays alto and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet, and flute, as well as voice) Filip Krumes (violin), Rastko Popović (viola), Pavle Popović (cello), and David Sič (double bass). Krumes has been active for decades both in the world music scene and in jazz ensembles, and his violin playing compellingly combines jazz or ethno exuberance with classical discipline. In this sense, Jovićević and Krumes provide Quinary with its improvisational appeal, while the band as a whole establishes a chamber-like structure and a stable musical flow within the given context.
A special guest on the album is the renowned Italian vibraphonist Pasquale Mirra, whose warm tonal colors fit seamlessly into Jasna’s musical vision, entering the soundscape in places where the spacedrum once appeared. As a result, the ensemble sounds distinctly European, or more broadly situated within the context of Western composed and jazz music. When we add Jasna’s clear, melodic vocal and the very meticulous arrangements into the equation, some listeners—myself included—may be reminded of Esperanza Spalding’s outstanding album Chamber Music Society, one of my favorite records from that year (2009). Among the six compositions, three are vocal pieces, with the opening Let’s Go to the Mountains standing out to me as the most compelling and as paradigmatic of Jasna’s artistic approach. It brings together delicate arrangements and a beautiful vocal line, alongside passages in which Jovićević demonstrates her instrumental command with a hint of free-jazz flavor.
Among the three instrumental compositions, the title track Simple Joy stands out. At first listen, I thought it might be a folk song from the Balkan region and asked Jasna whether it was an arrangement. It turned out to be a completely original composition. “Not an arrangement, a minor pentatonic,” she wrote to me in a chat. “A Hungarian-style phrasing,” she added. Jasna Jovićević lives and works in Subotica, in northern Serbia, where the Hungarian population is predominant, so these influences come as no surprise. If her previous albums drew their strength from a specific fusion of two spiritual worlds—the Euro-American and the Indian —this time the emotional charge and the arranging context of the music are grounded in local tradition and in the encounter of the Balkans, Europe (in a broader sense), and America.
It would not be appropriate to compare and “rank” her albums from Flow Vertical to the present day. I prefer to view them as a kind of continuum, a sequence of diverse releases and ensembles, each with its own specific qualities and strengths. Their role is not to repeatedly give listeners what they already know they like, but to test and challenge us—to offer what we recognize as pleasing to both heart and intellect, while at the same time encouraging us to evolve and broaden our horizons as listeners, even when we confidently consider ourselves already open-minded and open-spirited.