Jazz Articles about ZZ Quartet

About ZZ Quartet

Album Review

Three Europeans and celebrated American drummer Adam Nussbaum stir up some chutzpah via the guitar-accordion based format. In recent times the accordion's role in jazz-centric vernaculars has been expanding. And while this quartet doesn't invent a newfound genre, its spunky and articulate disposition, containing all original compositions engender a sophisticated outlook. With alternating tempos and several speedy unison choruses by guitarist Ratko Zjaca and accordionist Simone Zanchini, the band veers into changeable dimensions, largely executed within a sprightly modus operandi ...

Album Review

ZZ Quartet: Beyond the Lines

Read "Beyond the Lines" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 31, 2014

Croatian guitarist Ratko Zjaca and Italian accordionist Simone Zanchini hit artistic pay dirt when they teamed up for The Way We Talk (In + Out Records, 2010). They joined forces with Macedonian bassist Martin Gjakonovski and American drummer Adam Nussbaum for that album, creating a cross-cultural blend of music that speaks to specific musical idiosyncracies and universal truths in sound. Now, a few years after that initial encounter-on-record, this outfit returns with a follow-up that's just as pleasing and unique ...

Album Review

ZZ Quartet: Beyond the Lines

Read "Beyond the Lines" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 4, 2013

The group is called the ZZ Quartet, and no, it is not an expansion of the famed blues rock trio from Texas, ZZ Top. Beyond the Lines is the brainchild of the leaders--the Zs of the ZZ Quartet--accordion master Simone Zanchini and guitarist Ratko Zjaca. And their music isn't rock, though elements of the genre surface, in Zjaca's oft-imes snappy guitar licks, or when Zanchini addresses the “ah-look-at-all-the-lonely-people" bit of the Beatles' melody on the tranquil “River Spirit."Anytime ...