Just days after the spectacular “Jazz meets the classics” concert for four grand pianos in Hall No. 1 of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, we talk to one of the participants - Zhivko Petrov. He was “on the jazz side”, alongside Angel Zaberski Jr. The “classical side” was presented by Ivan Yanukov and Georgi Cherkin. The concert was a huge success, but we now talk to the maestro about the new projects of his trio JP3 - the other two members being Vesselin Vesselinov-Eko, double bass and Dimiter Semov, drums. The musicians got together in 2004 and have had innumerable club and stage performances since, as well as Understandable – a live concert released on DVD in 2006. The album It’s a dream appeared in 2011; their latest Between the worlds appeared only recently.

The album’s title conveys a multitude of messages. One of the ideas is that the artiste exists in the real world and in the world of music at the same time. Here is Zhivko Petrov about how the album was born and what genres of music it has to offer.

“Between the worlds is JP3’s third album. We started out with the piece of the same name which I wrote a year ago together with the first Renaissance. A total of nine pieces went into our new album. We invited Arena Quartet, featuring Plamena Zhekova and Orlin Tsvetanov, violin, Valentin Gerov, viola and Hristo Tanev, cello. We started a national tour to present the album. The interesting thing is that this was the first time Eko wrote the music for the trio. It made the album so much more colourful – the pieces are longer than in the previous It’s a dream. For the first time we have a piece with irregular meters – alternating 7 + 9. It is called Silent steps. Eko was actually inspired by his cat to write it – he had been watching it drinking water and decided to do a piece with the same rate of pulsation. The last composition One day in Paris is one of our first pieces that went into the 2006 DVD. There, it is just us three, now I have rearranged it with a string quartet and it sounds really well.”

The album features one more piece by Vesselin Vesselinov-Eko – Señor Astor influenced by Astor Piazzola. Just four months went into the making of the album After 4. In this album Zhivko Petrov turns to classical music from which he draws inspiration.

“After 4 is my other “newborn”. My thoughts had been wandering in that direction for a long time. My idea was to get close to the old masters whose music has been inspiring us for years. So, that it how the album came into being. I love to improvise on the basis of classical themes. To my mind, the classics are the greatest improvisers, so I have been trying to “rewind”. Chopin, Liszt and many others who were outstanding pianists and composers actually improvised all the time.”

What are Zhivko Petrov’s impressions of the trio’s tour abroad and what lies ahead for them this summer here, in Bulgaria?

“After I created After 4, the trio toured Canada. We played in many jazz clubs in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa. We were really happy, the audiences appreciated us, the clubs were full. Of course, there were many Bulgarians there. In Montreal all tickets were sold out the previous day. The owner was astonished – how could that be, we were absolutely unknown to him. Obviously, it is the music that matters. Now we are continuing our tour of Bulgaria. The summer cities and stages where audiences will be able to hear Between the worlds are Bourgas on 25 July (incidentally, that is my birthday) and Varna on 27 July; our performance in Varna will be the final concert of the Varna Summer festival. Before that I shall be playing at the A to Jazz festival in Sofia, together with Beloslava, Mitko Semov, Rossen Zahariev-Roko, Dimiter Karamfilov and backup vocals Elena Kokorska.”

The audio features the following pieces:

-  Between the worlds;
-  Señor Astor;
-  Passion, prelude in G minor from the album After 4, piano – Zhivko Petrov;
-  Silent steps by Vesselin Vesselinov-Eko, performed by JP3.

English version: Milena Daynova