A wonderfully varied jazz sound between cool playfulness and a lot of feeling nourished by many different kinds of music – that is exactly what you get on “Invisible Bridges”, the new album by DUSHA CONNECTION.

Esad Halilovic (drums), Clemens Rofner (double bass), Sebastian Schneider (piano) and featured artist Wolfgang Puschnig (alto saxophone) make European music history and its stylistic diversity the theme of their album. They describe how the traditional folk music of different regions have cross-fertilized each other. For instance, after the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, a fado melody became the leitmotif of a Bosnian sevdalinka – a ballad form typical of Sarajevo. Similarly, Yiddish klezmer harmonies appear in Greek folk songs. The album of Dusha Connection has source in various musical elements which merge into a truly homogeneous overall sound – above all thanks to the marvelous interplay of the musicians.

A HIGHLY ENTERTAINING STORY

The melodies and rhythms of folk music from Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe experience a kind of redefinition through the band, they interweave with the style of modern jazz and find their way musically into the present in a new form. The beautiful and at the same time highly entertaining about the whole story is that this happens in a suspenseful and excitingly changeable way. Esad Halilovic and his fellow musicians play spiritedly and find the perfect balance between energetic momentum, atmospheric calm, smooth elegance, and breakneck improvisation.

Michael Ternai

https://www.musicaustria.at/dusha-connection-invisible-world/ (German)