Balkan Blues: Dusko Goykovich and Swinging Macedonia

In the Fifties and Sixties, American critics tended to view European jazz musicians the way Samuel Johnson viewed women preachers; like dogs walking on their hind legs, “It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all" (and that’s the way the same critics viewed women jazz musicians, for that matter). Whenever an American bandleader hired a European musician, he (and it was almost always “he”) was seen as the exception that proved the rule. Dusko Goykovich, the Serbian trumpeter, worked with Maynard Ferguson and Woody Herman, which allowed said critics to condescend to him a bit.

Listening to his 1966 album, Swinging Macedonia (original cover art at left), reveals a major talent in the hard bop vein who could keep up with the likes of sidemen Mal Waldron and Nathan Davis. The 1988 CD reissue doesn’t list composer credits, but apparently all of the tunes are by Goykovich except Billy Reid’s The Gypsy, which became a minor jazz standard after Charlie Parker recorded it at the notorious Lover Man session (it’s a feature for Nathan Davis here―a seriously underrated musician). Most of them are based on Macedonian folk motifs―themselves products of the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans―which fit in perfectly with the interest in non-Western music fostered by John Coltrane and others. Macedonia, Saga Se Kame, and Balcan Blue are good examples, whereas Jumbo Uganda is a sort of African highlife melody, with Goykovich taking a soaring Dizzy-like break. Peter Trunk on bass and the wonderfully named Cees See on drums provide strong rhythmic support in the true Balkan spirit. Overall, Swinging Macedonia is an outstanding recording, right up there with the best of the mid-Sixties. Goykovich, in his late 80s, is still active in music. I need to check out more of his music.

Here are Macedonia, Wedding March of Alexander the Great, and Balcan Blue.