Jazz as a sense of freedom and a form of expression – this is a feeling jazz fans will be able to share with jazz singer Lilly Ilieva and the musicians from The Minimum Quartet on 23 June at Studio 5, where they will be presenting their debut album entitled No Stars At All. The album features seven songs; the central piece that lent the album its name was written by the singer herself. Most of the pieces from the album started out as instrumental, but once Lilly Ilieva wrote lyrics to them in English, they became song.

“I graduated jazz at the Prince Claus Conservatoire in Groningen in the Netherlands,” Lilly says. “The other members of the band graduated the same school though in different years. Our training there to a great extent moulded our understanding of music and musical taste. I am thankful for having been able to be at Groningen because the educational programme is very fulfilling. I was given an opportunity to learn from people who are active as jazz musicians onstage in America. We had renowned names as lecturers, every week different musicians would come and share their own experience with us. And that was just great, we were learning from the best. Otherwise Groningen is a small university town. There is a lot of competition, and that is a good thing, but on the whole the atmosphere is friendlier than in Amsterdam, where there are more people from all over the world and there is a different kind of competition.”

“What brought us together was music and the way we understand it. If there was no chemistry, I don’t think it could have worked. And the best thing about this group is that we are constantly re-discovering one another, especially when we are on stage. When we play, we are keeping up a neverending dialogue. When Alexander and I came back to Bulgaria and started meeting different jazz musicians, we really hit it off with the other members of the quartet. We all wanted to play together more often. That was how The Minimum Quartet came into being. We started out doing arrangements of jazz standards. And it was only natural to follow up with music we ourselves had composed.”

Photo: rpivate library