Dragan Gjakonovski- Shpato

The formation of the jazz scene in Macedonia began after the Second World War. Apart from the unfavourable conditions, jazz managed to create its own group of devotees, as well as artists who would create music in an improvisational and spontaneous manner. The supporter of these processes and founder of jazz music in Macedonia is Dragan Gjakonovski - Shpato (11.03.1931 - 3.01.1987).

Shpato was born on 11.03.1931, in Skopje, in a family who treated music as their life vocation. Shpato’s grandfather, the Deacon Jovan - after whom the family acquired its name (deacon - “gjakon”) - aspired to work with music unprofessionally, as part of the church service. Shpato’s father Vasil Gjakonovski is the founder of the first popular orchestra in Macedonia, in 1924. The orchestra’s repertoire included waltzes and tangos by Strauss, 20th century contemporary dances, as well as jazz-sounding pieces. Vasil Gjakonovski was a violinist and music teacher (Skopje, 25.11.1893 - Skopje, 1.07.1951). After completing his secondary education in Sofia, he was educated in the War Academy. Upon his graduation from this Academy, he graduated at the Department for Music Pedagogy at the Vienna Conservatory in 1920. Shpato came in contact with jazz because of the ensembles formed by his brother Hari Gjakonovski (1924, Skopje - ), a violinist by profession, and member of the Macedonian Philharmonic and Finnish Philharmonic.

Owing to this environment, Dragan Gjakonovski Shpato managed to develop his music talent. Unfortunately, Shpato wasn’t able to graduate from the secondary school in Skopje. He was expelled as an advocator of the forbidden music. He nevertheless managed to become acquainted with the instruments his family knew: percussion instruments, mandolin, guitar and violin - the latter of which he had played since the age of six. Later on, Gjakonovski learned to play the instrument of his dreams - the 120 bass accordion, which he incorporated in his first jazz bands.

Shpato’s first contact with jazz occured through the late night radio programme on Voice of America, hosted by Willis Conover, as well as the programmes of radio Luxembourg and other European music stations. The other source of influence was his brother Hari’s ensembles, for which Shpato produced his first music arrangements.

Nonetheless, the key element contributing to Shpato’s further learning of the secrets of jazz was his transcription of jazz compositions. As a matter of fact, in Macedonian society, Gjakonovski was well known for his power to transcribe a melody upon first hearing. This practice enabled him to analyse all segments of composition, to improve his own capacity of knowledge, and promote jazz music. His transcriptions of foreign compositions have been the only scores for Macedonian ensemble performance for years. Having in mind that he was self-taught, he didn’t even write scores, but directly wrote down on single parts scores for instruments. His power of reconstructing jazz and other genre tunes was fascinating. Thus, when professor Zografski lost one of his scores, he asked Gjakonovski to reconstruct it from the existing recording. His transcription of the music for the film Water Ball is legendary: he transcribed the music with a flashlight during the scheduled shows of the film.

Dragan Gjakonovski Shpato’s music activities can be presented through three fields:

The first field of action is the formation of jazz ensembles. Dragan Gjakonovski was the main initiator of the formation of jazz bands in Macedonia. With his ensembles he slowly constructed Macedonia’s jazz scene and promoted the new music genre. We shall give a chronological presentation of some of the large number of bands - some of which existed for a short time, and some still exist today.

During the times in Yugoslavia when jazz was regarded as a decadent bourgeois genre, Shpato managed to form several jazz bands. Towards the end of 1948, in the Culture and Art Centre “Mirche Acev” SAJO was formed - Student Academic Jazz Orchestra. SAJO performed at the dances at the school “Goce Delchev” in Skopje every Saturday night.

Shpato formed (i.e lead) his first larger ensemble in 1950, as part of the police orchestra, i.e the DSVR orchestra. From a wind orchestra, Shpato created a big-band by the example of Glenn Miller’s orchestra. During the marching performances of the compositions through Skopje, Shpato played the Gran cassa.

In 1951, a “Rhythm Sextet” lead by Shpato was formed in Radio Skopje. This ensemble included: Dragan Gjakonovski - accordion, leader and arranger, Slobodan Nikolovski - double bass, Izet Asanovikj - clarinet, saxophone, Blagoja Cheshlarov - trumpet, Miodrag Isailovski - piano, and Aco Vasevski - guitar, whereas there were no percussion instruments. Radio Skopje saw the first performances of live swing, bebop, cool jazz and popular music. The popularisation of jazz was also carried out through the performances on the dances in the “Postal Hall” in Skopje. According to Ilija Pejovski, the “Rhythm Sextet” set the grounds for the formation of the big band and the revue orchestra.

Thus, in 1956, the Macedonian Radio Television saw the creation of a popular ensemble conducted by Dragan Gjakonovski Shpato. Part of the members of the ensemble included: Izet Asanovikj - trumpet, Vasko Petkovski - trombone, Andrej Beljan - guitar, Dimitar Masevski - percussion. In 1961 the popular ensemble grew into a big band. It performed concerts in the Army Hall of the Republic of Macedonia, in many cities in Macedonia and also in former Yugoslavia. The activities of this big band were fully based on Shpato’s ambition to accept and perfect all types of jazz. Thus, the normal practice of transcribing melodies from famous jazz musicians continued to the extent of even transcribing the improvisations. Of course, these musicians grew into great improvisors - Petar Kargov, Goce Dimitrovski, Zoran Jovanovikj, Damir Imeri, Zoran Kraguevski, who continued to assert the values of jazz. The Macedonian Radio and Television Big Band has been performing jazz continuously to this day.

Among the many bands which included representative Macedonian artists are “Pet plavi podochnjaci” (“Five blue bags under the eyes”) - 1964, and the band within the vocal quartet “ABCD”. The ensemble Shpato decided to direct and promote into a representative vocal ensemble was the vocal quartet “Impulsi” (“Impulses”). Apart from these bands, Dragan Gjakonovski collaborated with all the ensembles in Macedonia and Yugoslavia.

The second field is Shpato’s contribution to original jazz composition. Dragan Gjakonovski left behind a small, but valuable number of jazz compositions stylistically belonging to swing jazz, obviously influenced by Glenn Miller and Stan Canton - progressive jazz, especially in separate segments of his instrumental compositions such as “Na Igranka” (“At the Dance). This composition seldom sees collective improvisation, riff are alternately performed by different instrument sections, and solo improvisations. In fact, it is a type of transplantation of swing compositions performed by the Glenn Miller orchestra at the time.

On the other hand, Shpato managed to synthesise in a particular manner the elements of Brazilian music, Macedonian music folklore and jazz, reflected in his preference of Sergio Mendes, Antonio Carlos Jobim in the compositions “Za nas pochnuva zhivot - pozdrav do Antonio Karlos Zhobim” (“Life Begins for Us - Greetings to Antonio Carlos Jobim”), where rhythm is based on bossa nova; “Mi veti ti” (“You Promised me”) ? where the thickened line is used - thickening of the melody line, background writing, etc. One should note that Shpato is the only composer of vocal jazz compositions such as “Bez povratok” (“No Return”), “Roden kraj” (“Homeland”) which resemble the interpretations of Hi-Lo..s.

Gjakonovski’s approach to Macedonian folk rhythms was specific in a positive manner. Without using citations, and frequently employing irregular rhythms (5/4 in “Glas vo dalechinata” (“A Voice from Afar”) and 7/4 in “Homeland”), through deeply elaborate melodic structures, his majestically arranged song often echoes with a specific Macedonian rhythm. The number of original compositions is small as opposed to the 5000 arrangements Shpato made for different ensembles.

The final, but extremely important field is Shpato’s pedagogic activities and the students - heirs of his work. In his ambition to popularise jazz music, Shpato educated all musicians without exception, in terms of interpretation, composition and arrangement.

As we already mentioned, the ensembles Shpato formed wrote the history of Macedonian jazz music. For more than 30 years, the Big Band of the Macedonian Radio and Television - formed by Shpato - has been asserting the existence of jazz in Macedonia, “creating an authentic sound based on the rich, century-long Macedonian music tradition, inspired by the maybe only in the world rhythmical, modal structures and instruments, all within the realm of what we call jazz”.

The students who continue Shpato’s work are the largest contribution by the great-hearted teacher. They include the composer and conductor Aleksandar Djambazov, the writer of popular melodies Dimitar Masevski, as well as numerous singers of jazz and popular music.

His students continue to create jazz music in Macedonia. The desire to treat jazz professionally has been fulfilled by composers and instrumentalists such as Ilija Pejovski - Bas, who has written compositions that can be called Macedonian jazz and has organised jazz music at home and in Europe; the composer and guitarist Zhivoin Glishikj, as well as Shpato’s sons Martin and Oleg Gjakonovski - academically educated jazz musicians who, unfortunately, no longer work in Macedonia. Antonio Kitanovski - honorary graduate of the jazz school Berkeley in Boston, USA realised the idea of forming a centre for studying jazz music. On 1.11.1997, within the Culture and Art Centre in Skopje, the first official opening of a “Jazz Studio” took place - a jazz school which will continue Shpato’s idea that one day, jazz will be able to share it’s cultural success with the other arts.

Text Author: Eleni Novakovska

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