Dragan Milovanović Combo - SUBWAY (2024)

The third studio album by the band Dragan Milovanović Combo, entitled “Subway”, contains seven original tracks by leader, composer and arranger Dragan Milovanović, as seven stations of the imaginary metro of the musical metropolis.

The tracks contrast in tempo and character, introducing us to the different sound environments of individual “stations”.

This time, the Combo is in the formation of a jazz quintet with two melodic instruments: guitar and saxophone.

The stylistic framework, unlike the previous release of this band, which was deeply rooted in jazz tradition, flirts with jazz rock and post-bap in terms of sound and genre, primarily thanks to the author’s engagement of musicians from the younger generation.

The band’s new sound is brought by guitarist Luka Malko with a slightly distorted guitar vibe of freer solo expression and saxophonist Ljubomir Turajlija, a member of the RTS Big Band, who provides a counterbalance to the more traditional approach.

The introduced sections of themes, in a blend of the colors of the aforementioned instruments and purposefully simplified arrangements without countermelodies and harmonization, reflect the author's tendency to slightly deviate from the classic stylistic idiom of the golden era of jazz.

The rhythm section, the basis of every Combo project, remained in the same composition as on the debut album from 2017: Boris Šainović (double bass), Uroš Stamenković (drums) and Dragan Milovanović (piano).

Band Dragan Milovanović Combo/ Photo: Veljko Vujčić
The title of the release ’’Subway’’ alludes to two different associations, and Dragan Milovanović explains:
– The first is the withdrawal of jazz from the mainstream into the subculture: a jazz community of musicians and music lovers, who even in a large environment almost all know each other, have their own gathering places, their own way of dressing and verbal and non-verbal communication…….The second association is of a local type, namely the city in which they live and create a fantasy about the subway which, like the jazz scene to which the band members belong, is one of the symbols of every metropolis.

The album was recorded at the Faculty of Music Arts, with great enthusiasm and help from Professor Ivan Uzelac and his students, who have been collaborating on this project for several years, which resulted in recordings of live performances by this band (Dragan Milovanović Combo live @Mestašce, 2022), mixing and mastering of this and the previous release (Ivan Uzelac).