Description
Ratko Zjaca is back with a very distinctive world music project that finds the Croatian-born guitarist and long-time resident of Rotterdam interacting with musicians from Romania, England and India. The results of his 18th outing as a leader or co-leader are staggeringly beautiful and full of improvisational daring. Joined by Romanian cimbalom player Marius Preda, who is widely regarded as the world's first jazz soloist on that trapezoidal stringed instrument that is the distant cousin of a hammered dulcimer, along with British-born upright bassist Nick McGuire and the innovative, groundbreaking percussionist Trilok Gurtu, Zjaca and his interactive crew strike an uncanny accord on the eight delightful originals presented on Touching Minds.
With Zjaca bringing in all the compositions and Preda doing the arranging, they recruited McGuire for his rock-solid fundamental bass work. They next brought in Bombay-born Gurtu, an acclaimed master of the tabla who has also developed an abundance of chops over the decades on a hybrid drumming kit he designed and pioneered through his collaborations with John McLaughlin, Joe Zawinul, Bill Laswell, Jonas Hellborg, Jack Bruce, Terje Rydpal, Oregon, the Arke String Quartet and many others. Throughout Touching Minds, Gurtu brings the groove while also coloring the proceedings with nuanced shadings.
"I wanted a new sound for this album and the tabla and cimbalom together moved it all to a new spectrum. And when you have two of world's best players on their respective instruments, which Trilok and Marius are, you have some very special ingredients to make some incredible music", Zjaca says.
While he may have soaked up the influences of countless guitarists he has listened to and emulated at different times over the years, from Joe Pass and Jim Hall to John McLaughlin and Pat Metheny, he described his guiding principle throughout Touching Minds as: "I play what I hear and what the music asks of me at that moment."
