Casey Benjamin is coming to Bulgaria to take part in a club concert of one of Bulgaria’s youngest funk formations. In July the impressive American saxophonist, vocal and multi-instrumentalist participated in the A to Jazz Festival in the Robert Glasper Experiment Formation. Casey is also a producer and composer who plays with other formations as well. He has been working with different bands and a series of famous musicians through the years. His concert with the Bulgarian band is on October 17 at City Stage Club, one of the new music spaces in Sofia.

Alexander Gegov, now a first year student at the Prof. Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music tells the short story of Friday Fiction:

“It all began last year, when a new funk band appeared at the Lyubomir Pipkov National School of Music. It was founded by our guitarist Preslav Atanasov and drummer Adrian Nikolov. They invited me as a saxophone player a bit later. Our first concert was at school. That was the beginning. Then the formation changed a bit. We had concerts at Swinging Hall and we combined those with jam sessions. Those went really well and we had great success. At the moment the band consists of 7 people, four of them being students at the music high school – Preslav, Adrian, Petar Krivitski /bass guitar/ and Vladilena Vasileva /vocal/. The other three are students at the music academy – Petar Apostolov /trumpet/, Stilian Penev /piano/ and myself. Each of us listens to different music, but funk is the basis.”

The style is full of energy for the Friday Fiction guys, it gives them freedom and inspiration. Perhaps that is why they call themselves ‘the young hope for old funk’. Of course they are very thrilled about the forthcoming concert, which is the greatest event in the band’s young history.

“We first met Casey at the A to Jazz Festival in July,” Petar Apostolov says. “The Bulgarian Jazzanitza formation performed prior to them that night. We sat in the audience together with Casey and his colleagues. They were charmed by the Bulgarian project. We talked, exchanged contacts and later on, half-jokingly we asked Casey whether he would like to return to Bulgaria again for a concert with us. He agreed, set the date and now it is coming through. Every one of us lives in his or her own trance right now, but we try to focus on the preparation of the event. We have selected several pieces that he plays with different formations, but we will arrange those differently. The works have been composed for a trio, and there will be 8 of us onstage, together with Casey. So, we will have to re-arrange exclusively and to add different colors – brass, guitar etc. The rest that you can expect is ‘old funk’…”

English version: Zhivko Stanchev