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Song

I will laugh through the tears
and will cry through the laughter
awake in my sleep
and brave from fear.
In the cold I’ll be warm
a ball of ice in the heat,
a cloud midst in the sunshine,
heatwave in the rain.
Storm in August
chrysanthemum in May,
in April – an iceberg...
and a song without end!

Eva Kornazova
Translated by Koprinka Tchervenkova

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« La musique creuse le ciel. » [“Music hollows out the sky”]
Charles Baudelaire

New Horizons of Georgi Kornazov

Afro-American music is by definition, all through its brief history, the fruit of fertilization, mixing, and multiple encounters, from Gypsy traditions and all folklore to the most sophisticated electronic inventions and treatments, passing through all the phases of the musical universe, the vast global sound system. There is no domain which jazz has shrank from confronting, at times even digesting the ingredients to form from them its own substance, one element of constant renewal. Jazz is indeed a music born of absence and of nothingness, a music that has never ceased to feed on its predecessors and neighbours. Giving rise to a creative state that transcends its own forms. Jazz continuously hazards encounters, transformation, disappearance, dissolution, and that is its only way of staying alive. In this movement, this rift, this margin, this urgency, the music has always found both the cause of its desire and the reason for its success. Also, if it wishes to live, and not merely survive, jazz must flee from itself; it must find other escape routes, other lines of force, other horizons.

Horizons: the new band of Georgi Kornazov, together with the soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien, the guitarist Manu Codjia, the double bassist Marc Buronfosse and the drummer Karl Jannuska. The disc bears the title Viara.

In Bulgarian “Viara” means hope, faith. Faith in one’s art. Faith in art. Art, not as a response to death, as Malraux (a French writer and minister of culture) said in his time, but, today, a struggle for life. Whom to struggle against, whom to assault when injustice haunts the air in our lungs, the space in which we think, and the silence and stupor of the stars? Our revolt is just as badly conceived as the world that evokes it, wrote Cioran. So, despite everything, resistance if not revolt. And hope. This music called jazz dwells in a place of resistance to the mechanical usage of music. What distinguishes jazz from the machine music that surrounds us is that jazz, rightly, awakens us, shakes us in the midst of sound.

The music of Georgi Kornazov attempts a great density of ideas and sounds. He dreams of new horizons, of new surprises, tinted with wise interplay, with nuanced feeling and unheard sounds. His quintet masters all the dynamics of jazz, fiery tenderness, intelligent interjections, dovetailed virtuosity and lyricism, a collision between tradition and improvisation, always animated by a persistent freshness, a structure that never bores, allowing us to discover surprises at the turning into each sidestreet and other lightened pathways taken. With compositions of sophistication, iridescence in the timbres, a collective power in their playing, an orchestral dynamic, and a fluidity of architectures, this is a group of extreme musicality, mobility and plasticity. This powerfully lyrical music arrives naturally; it never strives, being strictly a function of the forces generated between the five musicians and through them, to us. It pours forth with the abundant clarity of something indispensable.

Franck Médioni
Translated by Richard Robinson

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Georgi Kornazov

Born in Sevlievo, Bulgaria, in 1971, Georgi Kornazov first encountered jazz while still a teenager studying classical music at the Sofia National Conservatory. He soon began to play with the most famous Bulgarian jazz musicians: Milcho Léviev, Antoni Dontchev, Stoyan Yankulov, Hristo Yotsov, Teodossi Spassov, bands like White, Green and Red and Akaga as well as with the folk musician Ivo Papasov.
In 1995, he joined the jazz department of the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris where he worked with François Jeanneau, Jean-François Jenny Clark, Hervé Sellin and François Théberge. The following year, he won the prize for best soloist at the Tremplin de Jazz in Avignon, where Daniel Humair chaired the jury.
In 1998, he won the first prize in the jazz department of C.N.S.M. de Paris, and also third prize as soloist and the second band prize with the sextet of Geoffroy Tamisier at La Défense national jazz competition. In the following year at the same competition he again received third prize with a band he himself had formed with Stéphane Guillaume (sax), Emmanuel Codjia (guitar), Thomas Grimmonprez (drums) and Antonio Licusati (bass).
In 2000, Kornazov participated in numerous projects, occasionally playing in Didier Levallet’s Orchestre National de Jazz conducted by John Lewis, and regularly played under the direction of Paolo Damiani. He was a member of the Paris Jazz Big Band as well. He has played with Toots Thielemans and Phil Collins in a band directed by Quincy Jones.
In 2001 he recorded his first album leading his quintet: Staro Vrémé (Old times); he contributed to the second album of OLH Acoustic, Geoffroy Tamisier’s band (who had also invited Kenny Wheeler), and played on Paris Jazz Big Band’s album A suivre (To be continued). He created a quartet to pay homage to Jay Jay Johnson, the famous trombone player, with Denis Leloup, Pierre Paolo Pozzi and Stéphane Kerecki, and they played original compositions by Georgi Kornazov for Radio France.
Since 2002, he has been playing with Henri Texier’s new band, the Strada Sextet.
In 2004 Georgi Kornazov made a second album leading a band: Essence de roses (Rose oil, a Bulgarian speciality) for which he invited Krassen Lutzkanov, player of the kaval (a traditional flute from Bulgaria).
In 2005 he joined the Vienna Art Orchestra (conducted by Mathias Rüegg) with whom he recorded the album Swing and Affairs. He also joined Jean-Marie Machado’s Andaloucia Sextet.
In 2006 Georgi Kornazov created two new bands: Horizons Quintet and the Kornazov / Codjia / Tamisier Trio. In 2007, invited by the NDR Big Band of Hamburg, he played with Bob Brookmeyer, Al Jarreau, Christof Lauer, Gene Calderazzo, Eric Watson, Nils Wogram, and also worked with the composers and arrangers Steve Gray and Michael Gibs.

kornazov.com

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Thanks to:
Marc, Emile, Manu and Karl for their contribution and for putting true soul into this music
very special thanks to Marc for giving me the courage and hope to realize this record
to Charles Frossard (Studio Mesa) for the understanding and the sound
to Ivan, Nadejda and Yana Kornazovi, for believing in me and supporting me through all these years
to Henri Texier for the life experience in music, from whom I have learnt such a lot
to Konstantin Tchervenivanov for my web site
to Eva for the beautiful poems
to Marie Vrinat Nikolov
to Véronique
to the BMC team