The evolution of the group’s sound is documented on three album releases. The self-titled debut, SVETI, and the 2001 follow up, Live Kolach were released by Benito Records. The new album Where I Come From is out on Firma Entertainment.
The working group, in different formations from trio to septet, features Brad Mason (trumpet), Eli Degibri (sax), Nir Felder (guitar), Elliot Mason (trombone), Aaron Goldberg (piano) and Matt Pavolka (bass). The group is currently touring in support of Where I Come From.
On the wide-ranging talent of this group, Phil Di Pietro of Allaboutjazz proclaimed “SVETI is a group of absolutely monster musicians.”
Life & Work
Bio:
Marko Djordjevic has played on more than 40 albums and has thousands of live performances to his credit.
Some of the artists Djordjevic has performed and recorded with include: Matt Garrison, Wayne Krantz, Jonah Smith, Clarence Spady, Lucky Peterson, Jacques Schwartz-Bart, Garry Willis, Hal Crook, Bill Frisell, Lionel Loueke, Aaron Goldberg, The Itals, Chris McDermott, and Eric Lewis.
Djordjevic graduated with honors from Berklee College of Music, where he was accepted on a scholarship at the tender age of 16. One of the finest musicians of our era, Blue Note recording artist Lionel Loueke says: “Marko is one of the greatest drummers out there. He possesses incredible technique, and a musical mind to match it! I love playing with him because he is so creative and unique!”
For more than ten years SVETI has been the creative outlet for Djordjevic. As the composer for SVETI, he writes music inspired by the rich musical tradition of his Balkan roots, but with a nod to the “Western” artists who have influenced him; from Coltrane and Weather Report to Zappa and the Police.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
"It's one thing to be a brilliant drummer, with impeccable time and phenomenal technique; it's another to be one that can compose and arrange with the best of them. Marko does exactly that on Where I Come From. On top of it all, he surrounds himself with the finest talent, creating a musical juggernaut that breaks all boundaries. It's music steeped in tradition yet entirely original!"
- Gonzalo Silva, Metronom Magazine
Drummer Marko Djordjevic has written a very beautiful ballad in "Don't Be Sad." The melody is a simple plea. The playing is virtuosic. Sveti produces a compelling sound.
- Jazz.com
This album by the Serbian virtuoso and his group Sveti invites us on a musical odyssey. Rich in rhythm, color, texture and melody has already won praise from critics in the US. A great musician is inviting you in - feel free to enter!
- Philippe Legare, Batteur Magazine, France
Marko is a world class drummer and composer. He is one of the best and perhaps the most stylistically original drummer in contemporary music today. This CD shows Marko's prowess as a hard swinging jazz player, a master of odd metered folkloric music, an amazing soloist and a truly original composer. Buy this CD! You may just hear the shape of things to come in modern drumming.
- Lucas Pickford, bassist extraordinaire
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).