Ines Trickovic’s foray into jazz began at the age of 17, listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Tom Jobim and Miles Davis. The singer is now getting ready to record a new album in New York and putting together a cabaret-varieté show in Macau
The Jazz cult is growing in China and “developing fast, especially in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong,” says 32-year-old singer Ines Trickovic who now lives in Macau, where she is preparing a cabaret-varieté show, which will include diverse artistic and musical elements, as well as acts from the world of circus performance.
“There aren’t many people in Macau dedicated to the arts full time, they do it as a hobby. There are artists, some in the Portuguese community, others in the Chinese community, but they don’t collaborate together in an intense manner,” the Croatian native explains. “I want to produce a cabaret show that includes artists from diverse areas – acrobats, clowns, jugglers, comedians and musicians from different communities, in a ‘varieté’ show. I know many artists, some do fantastic things, but they are all doing their thing in isolation. I think a show like this can bring all the artists together and create something bigger and better. That’s what I am planning for 2015.”
Having met her husband Ao Ieong Weng Fong, a photographer, director and movie producer here, Ines decided to relocate herself to the territory a little over two months ago.
Her journey into Jazz began in Croatia when she was a teenager. At the time Ines didn’t even understand the meaning of the words “Garota do Ipanema”.
“My interest in Bossa Nova began very early. I was around 16 years old when I received a cassette of Tom Jobim, Gilberto Gil and other Brazilians, and I started listening to it over and over. I think that during those two years I listened to the music, translated the lyrics and learnt Portuguese,” the singer explains, even though she has never been to Brazil.
Her early appreciation for music stems from the fact that “it’s in the culture” of her country. She plays the accordion and piano, but doesn’t consider herself a “good instrumentalist”, because she never attended music school. She did teach herself to sing however.
“The great Jazz singers were self-taught,” she explains. She began practicing by listening to the musicians.
“I heard Miles Davis, I focused on the trumpet, and repeated and memorized. I listened to his improvised part, I wrote the music down, and repeated the process. That’s how you learn to improvise, but you must listen to thousands of musicians, performers of guitar, saxophone, piano; it’s a long process.”
Today, Trickovic is one of the most prestigious Jazz singers in her country. This year she won ‘Album of the Year Croatia’, called a “Porin”, equivalent to a Croation Grammy Award.
2011 was the first year the artist visited China, and these days she is a regular guest at concerts and Jazz festivals in the country and throughout the region including the International Jazz Festival in Hong Kong, Shenzhen Oct – Loft Jazz Festival and World Music Festival of Beishan in Zhuhai.
Last year, the singer recorded Runjic in Blue, considered by critics as one of the great Croatian “avant-garde” Jazz albums of the year. In May, Trickovic performed in concert series All Souls at Sundown, accompanied by Jazz pianist Aaron Goldberg, at the Unitarian Church of All Souls in Manhattan, New York.
The singer, who is represented by New York Artists Management, is now preparing a new album with saxophonist Brian Girley, a Jazz musician based in New York. It is “a personal project of ours” she notes. The album will include songs that she wrote together with Girley, whom she met at the Shenzhen festival.
“We developed the songs online, via e-mail and Skype, exchanged songs, talked and exchanged ideas – this is how we work. Now it’s time to meet in the same city and record”.
The artist plans to record the album between April and May this year in New York, where she will also perform in a series of concerts.
Ines Trickovic was still a child when war broke out in the former Yugoslavia and devastated the country between 1991 and 1995. “It was chaos. I was eight years old and life came to a standstill”. Dubrovnik, her hometown and UNESCO World Heritage Patrimony, was in flames from the war between the Yugoslav People’s Army and the Croatian Defence Forces. During the bombing the population had to seek refuge in underground shelters. “Some days we had school, others not. We didn’t have water or electricity. The worst was surviving for three months without water.” In the shelter when anyone brought a guitar, Ines was called to sing. “The war was a very big confusion. Both sides ended up losing, everyone lost. There were no winners in that war.”
