Ladislav Fidri
trumpet

Sasa Nestorovic
saxophone

Milos Krstic
piano

Ratko Divjak
drums

Mladen Barakovic
bass

LADISLAV FIDRI ((trumpet/flugelhorn, arranger, composer, conductor) - He was born on May 30th 1940. in Osijek, Croatia. He has been a soloist for the Croatian Radio-Television Big Band in Zagreb for over 40 years. He has also been the leader of the "Audi Big Band" Ingolstadt, Germany, for over 9 years. He has played at most of the jazz festivals in Europe. He was a member of the Gerry Mulligan "International Big Band" in Europe and played in the Clark Terry Big Band in 1974. He has been a leader of small combos as well as Big Bands. He has made over 10 LP-s playing/recording with Lucy Thompson, Yoot Sims, Ernie Wilkins, Sall Nistico, Gianni Basso, Leo Wright, Art Farmer, Maynard Ferguson, Dusko Gojkovich, Buck Clayton, Kay Winding, Curtis Fuller, Slide Hamthon, Albert Mangelsdorf, Erich Kleinschuster, John Lewis, Mall Waldron, Art Taylor, Danny Richmond, Sam Jones, Aladar Pege, etc. For the time being hi is occupied with the "Jazz Art Quartet" and he has recently started working with piano player Dugh Bickel, bassist Rocky Knauer and drummer Rick Hollander. He is now leading his own Quintet.

SASA NESTOROVIC - He was born in 1964 in Zagreb. He graduated from the Music Academy in Zagreb in 1989. During his studies and later on he received many awards ('Darko Lukic', 'Milka Trnina' - together with the Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, 'Judita' and others). Since 1989 he has been a permanent member of the Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, with which he has toured throughout Europe and the USA. In 1999 he appeared for the first time with the ACEZANTEZ, a contemporary music band, with whom he is still playing today. He is an accomplished jazz musician as well. This fact is proven by the awards given to him by the Croatian Music Union for the most prominent tenor and soprano saxophone player for the years 1997, 1998, and 1999, as well as by his appearance with the EBU Big Band (European Big Band Union) in Montreal in 1999, as a representative of the Republic of Croatia. He is a member of a number of well known jazz bands (the HRT Big Band, the Zagreb Jazz Portrait, the Cool Date, etc.).

MILOS KRSTIC graduated from the Music Faculty, the Department of Composition in Belgrade and received his advanced training at the Centro De Investigacion Ydesarallo da la Musica Cubana in Havana in 1990. He graduated from the Master Academy at Illinois University in Edwardswille in 1995. He is a specialist for bebop, swing, blues and Afro-Cuban music. He has written the diptych for symphonic orchestra Introduction and Allegro, solo songs and choir suite on the verses of Vasko Popa, the piano suite Veliki Crnac, compositions for the big jazz orchestra Mike by Moonlight and tens of compositions for small jazz orchestra. He has played with many jazz bands: the Teddy Edward's Quartet, the Alvin Queen Quartet, the Bebop Buffers of Arizona, the Leo Wright Quartet, the Hannes Beckman Quartet, the Gut-Markovic Sextet, the Zagreb Jazz Quintet, the Ivan Svager Sextet, etc. He has held a number of solo concerts in almost all euro-cities, as well as in America, participated at the significant festivals in Haag, Dresden, Havana, Prague, Hanover, Sofia, Szeged, Istanbul, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Bled, Skopje, Novi Sad, Belgrade, etc. He has published the books: Jazz Praktikum (1986, 87, and 91) and Top Bird (1989). He received awards at the Annual Music Conference in 1988. (Tuscon, Arizona). In cooperation with Alvin Queen, Clark Terry, Tony Scott, Stjepko Gut, Misa Blam, the RTS Big Band and so on, he has made over 20 records.

RATKO DIVJAK - He was born in 1947 in Vukovar, Croatia. For the last 25 years he has been taking part in the European and American jazz scenes (the California Jazz Fest, Los Angeles, Monterey, Sacramento, Montreux, Berlin, and Bologna). He has performed with the most significant jazz artists such as Bosko Petrovic, Dusko Gojkovich, Stjepko Gut, Petar Ugrin, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, N.H.Oe. Pedersen, Albert Mengelsdorf, Tony Coy, Gary Burton, Sal Nistico, Ferdinand Powel, Gianni Basso, Richard Davis, Joe Pass, Dave Libman etc. He has also played three times in the EBU Big Band. Since 1975 he has been a member of the Big Band RTV Slovenia. Discography: more than 30 jazz CDs and LPs.

MLADEN BARAKOVIC - He was born on 3rd August 1950 in Zagreb where he received his elementary and secondary music education. His later fields of study were not directly connected to music but he started playing the bass guitar in rock bands as early as the 1960s in the 'Djecaci' and 'Vizije' led by Kica Slabinac. In the late 60s and throughout the 70s he became involved in music professionally. He was a member of many distinguished groups of that era (the Drazen Boic Band, the YU Jazz Rock Selection, the Supersession Band, and later line ups of the 'Time' and the Lambert's Shop). He also worked as a studio musician for the former Yugoton and collaborated on theatrical projects and recorded music for a number of films and commercials. In 1985 he started working for the Komedija Theatre in Zagreb. Since 1978 he started playing jazz more intensively, and although he took up the contrabass with no formal training, he became very successful in jazz, and it seems there almost are no jazz musicians or groups in Zagreb he hasn't worked with: Bosko Petrovic, the Damir Dicic Trio, the Laci Fidri Quintet, the Hot Club Zagreb, The Big Bands of HRT, HGZ, HV, Jasna Bilusic's Cool Date, Cubismo, Cute, Tamara Obrovac, Lidija Bajuk, etc.) In 1996 he left Theatre to join the HRT Big Band, of which he is still a member. He is a permanent member of the 'Boilers' Quartet, the 'Boilers All Stars', the Matija Dedic Trio, the Ladislav Fidri Quartet and the Darko Jurkovic Quartet. He has received six Statuses of the HGU's award for the best instrumentalist of the year (three for the contrabass and three for the bass guitar). He has been to New Jersey in the USA seven times. He has performed in Slovenia, Austria, Italy, Germany, (the 'Boilers' were a forerunner to the Benny Golson-Keny Burrell Quintet on their tour), Norway, Great Britain, (the 'Boilers' were awarded the best musical event of the season by the English 'Times'). In 2002 he was a member of the EBU Big Band in Budapest. He has also performed in the ex-Yugoslav republics (Skopje, Nis, Valjevo, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Subotica, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Mostar, etc.) He has played with many foreign musicians (Csaba Dezzo, Georgij Garanjin, Kay Winding, Dave Homan, Chugi Varter, Mike Ellis, etc.).

IN COLLABORATION WITH U.S.A. EMBASSY IN BELGRADE