Slavo Rican Assembly Announced At Rockwood Music Hall

NYC-based septet Slavo Rican Assembly will hold an album release party for their recently-released album Intercosmic on Tuesday, December 13th at Manhattan's Rockwood Music Hall. Don't miss this extraordinary new seven-piece band, the latest project from pioneering NYC-based, Slovenian-born saxophonist/composer Jan Kus. Slavo Rican Assembly unites Kus' extensive experience from the NYC Latin jazz scene with his traditional South Slavic roots.

Slavo Rican Assembly use the international vocabulary of jazz as a springboard to delve deep into the sounds of their own musical roots. Bomba, salsa and rumba bump up against Slovenian harvest songs, Bosnian lullabies and Serbian laments in a musical cocktail that's 100% New York.

An idea that first started as a joke about Jan becoming "Puerto Rican by osmosis" and bassist, Dan Martínez becoming "Slavic by osmosis", because of the crew they used to play and hang out with regularly, was reaffirmed and strengthened by multiple tours of Puerto Rico and Slovenia, and finally developed into this full-on musical recipe for a unique fusion of various musical opposites.

The main focus of Slavo Rican Assembly is the exploration of the similarities and differences between the music of the Puerto Rican (and generally, Caribbean), and South Slavic cultures, merging them into a cohesive, brand-new and unique sound. What makes this delicate formula work in Jan's opinion are "the intricacy of rhythms, and the emotional charge of the melodies that the two musical traditions share".

With its cross-cultural sound, the group aims to demonstrate the universality of human experiences across national, political, and cultural borders, thus creating new "tribal" connections, which are more organized around ideas than blood relations, demonstrating the human ability to connect to all kinds of people in ways that are not exclusive, but expansive.