The new album of film, theatre and television music features guest appearances by renowned jazz artists including Zdenka Kovacicek, Igor Savin, Miljenko Prohaska and Bosko Petrovic.
The forthcoming release Chapters (Screen & Stage Dancefloor Jazz from Yugoslavia 1971–1984) on the Croatian based label Fox & His Friends Records marks a long-awaited contribution to the body of work of one of Yugoslavia’s most significant jazz musicians. Although he released only two albums during his lifetime, Ozren Depolo (1930–2005) left behind a vast creative legacy which, due to his continuous activity as a performer and collaborator, often remained overshadowed. This is his first album featuring exclusively original compositions.
Ozren Depolo was a central figure of Zagreb’s jazz and studio scene, known for his tireless work ethic and an impressive range of collaborations. He was the principal alto saxophonist and soloist of the Radio Zagreb Dance Orchestra for forty years, performing frequently on tour and at the region’s most important jazz festivals. Throughout his career, he played alongside international jazz greats such as Clark Terry, Oliver Nelson, Gerry Mulligan, Ted Curson, John Lewis, Johnny Griffin, Art Farmer, Leo Wright, Slide Hampton and Lucky Thompson, and worked extensively with Bosko Petrovic in the Nonconvertible All Stars and the B.P. Convention Big Band. He was also a member of ensembles including the Zagreb Jazz Quintet, the Yugoslav Pop Selection, The Alfi Kabiljo Orchestra, Acezantez and many others.
His work as a composer is least known to the public in the field of film and theatre, even though this is where he worked the most and enjoyed the greatest creative freedom. He composed the music for around 70 animated films produced by Zagreb Film, as well as for numerous domestic and international productions, including the feature films represented on this album: Bogdan Zizic’s Whatever You Can Spare (1979) and Early Snow in Munich (1984). His distinctive saxophone tone was often sought out, and his collaboration with Tomislav Simovic was even preserved in the Oscar-winning short film The Substitute (1961), in which Depolo also provided vocal performance.
Chapters brings together his original works for the first time, revealing a lesser-known side of his output: dance-oriented jazz and orchestral arrangements, electronic textures created in collaboration with Igor Savin at the legendary Lisinski Electronic Studio, as well as vocal works, including a performance by jazz diva Zdenka Kovacicek on the track Peep Show, conceived as a kind of continuation of the famous vocalise in Elektra. In the opening sequence of Early Snow in Munich, Zizic’s film about Yugoslav guest workers in Germany, audiences can once again hear Depolo’s thunderous voice, which made The Substitute so memorable. The recordings on Chapters offer a rare insight into his distinctive vision of music for film and stage, blending dancefloor jazz and electronics, large orchestral arrangements and masterful studio soloists.
Although Depolo authored more than one hundred compositions, many remain unreleased, lost in archives, or preserved only in manuscript form. Chapters therefore stands as a document of an untold creative opus, a new chapter in acknowledging an artist who, in his own words, “was a public musical institution,” always moving between the studio, the concert hall and the film set. For decades his work was woven into the music of others; this release finally opens a chapter that belongs to him alone.
Chapters (Screen & Stage Dancefloor Jazz from Yugoslavia 1971–1984) was produced from original master tapes from the archive of Ozren Depolo, restored for the record in collaboration with Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) and mastered by Frank Merritt at the renowned London studio The Carvery. The design is by Dejan Dragosavac Ruta, and the record includes a booklet with archival photographs and an introductory text by film scholar Zeljko Luketic. The album is distributed by Clone (Netherlands), Light In The Attic (USA) and The Orchard (USA). It is available directly from foxandhisfriends.bigcartel.com, including a special edition on 180-gram green vinyl, limited to 100 copies.
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