Guitar and double bass in jazz music – a well-known music collaboration worldwide, but not so much on local Bulgarian stage. The album Groovy Jazz, created by two popular Bulgarian jazz instrumentalists: Dimitar Karamfilov – double bass and Peter Georgiev – guitar, has been recently released on the music market. The album has already gathered a fan base and made music lovers talk about it.

Dimitar Karamfilov has been involved in music since an early age. In 2000 he graduated from the Lyubomir Pipkov National Music University, and in 2006 – from the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music. He has also taught students at the Pop and Jazz Art Department at the music academy for five years. From the beginning of his career until now, he has played on stage with some of the best Bulgarian jazzmen – Milcho Leviev, Zhivko Petrov, Theodosii Spasov, Hristo Yotsov, Antoni Donchev, Mikhail Yosifov, Milen Kukosharov and others.

In the spring of 2017, he unveiled his debut solo project entitled "Ecology". In early July, at the A to Jazz Festival in Sofia, the bassist held a concert, presenting the project to the joy of music fans.

Peter Georgiev, aka Pesho the Guitar, as his friends call him, has played in various projects with singer Pavel Terziyski, Desi Andonova, Harlem Jazz, Chet Baker Tribute and others. He, like his colleague Dimitar, started playing guitar at a young age. He continued his jazz guitar training in Bulgaria and the US and has learned from the best. He has already released a solo album but the love of jazz and the desire to compose music has brought together Mitko and Pesho in the Groovy Jazz Project. It contains 10 pieces, as some of them are jazz standards and others are their own compositions. We have learned more from the musicians themselves.

“Mitko and I have been friends for a long time and have been playing in different bands together for 6-7 years. We have even performed on stage without a vocalist. This way we gathered a repertoire of our favorite tunes quite naturally and also composed a few pieces. We performed them during live performances and watched the way people reacted. Then we chose the best ones and that is how the Groovy Jazz album came out.”

Here is what Dimitar Karamfilov told Radio Bulgaria:

“Pesho is the author of the pieces and he created them according to the exact definition of groovy jazz. There is a nice pulsating groove pointing to the R&B and soul sound and there is a slight hint of Caribbean motifs. Generally speaking, we have created a chamber type of sound, considering the instruments used. There are big names on the world jazz scene who have found their place in this configuration - guitar and double bass. These include musicians such as Charles Haden, Pat Metheny and others. We have been influenced by them more or less, especially in the standards we chose for this album.”

Apart from being a musician, Peter Georgiev is also a passionate traveler. He likes to travel around the world and the guitar is always with him. Somewhere in the Caribbean, one of the tracks featured in this album entitled El Mar De Agua Verde, was born. Mitko added the bass line to it and used the double bass as a percussion instrument. GB Ragga is another play that has also been inspired by the Caribbean. The first promotion of Groovy Jazz has taken place in a club in Sofia, as drummer Atanas Popov performed together with Mitko and Pesho on stage.

English: Alexander Markov