Three Americans play jazz based on Bulgarian folk music. “Triism” won the Bucharest International Jazz Competition. Levi Saelua (saxophone), Alex Reiff (upright bass) and Jim Frink (drums) improvise on traditional Bulgarian songs, and Women’s Dance by Milcho Leviev is also part of their repertoire. They play Bulgarian music with authentic feeling, and yet they have never been to our country. The ease with which they include our tradition in their music comes from a difficulty they encountered – Bulgarian folklore is not “cerebral”, it is about feeling it. And they interpret the uneven rhythm through the dance that is unseparable from it.
