Serbian flutist Milena Jancuric on her debut with Shapes and Stories. Shapes and Stories is the recording debut of the Serbian flutist from Novi Sad Milena Jancuric who comes out on the Italian label A.Ma. Editions. After her classical studies, Jancuric moved to Boston to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music and where she came into contact with the American jazz music scene. And after having collaborated on various records and having performed on stages all over the world, she has now landed on the first record of which she is also a producer and composer as well as an interpreter. Accompanying her in this adventure, which still remains deeply hers, Aleksandar Dujin on piano, Ervin Malina on double bass, Petar Radmilovic on drums, Milan Jancuric on tenor sax, Aleksandra Denda on vocals and Lazar Novkov on accordion.
A classic jazz record The disc is a classic jazz album that obviously revolves around the solo instrument played with great skill by Jancuric, thus following a not too dense tradition of great flautists of the past, from Eric Dolphy to Roland Kirk to Sam Reeves. From the first and beautiful track Purple Shoes Step it is understood how the flutist was able to find a harmonious balance with the other instruments in the arrangements and here, while on the rhythm of the song we try to imagine the steps of the fascinating purple shoes of the title, we follow the evolution of the piano with its cascades of notes and the melancholy hints of the flute. A promising start to the almost ten minutes of the song, but the rest will certainly not disappoint fans. Shapes and Stories: the reason for the title chosen by Milena Jancuric Forms and stories: the songs on the record are in fact divided between those that aim more at a geometric type structure, as in the case of the nervous Circle and Lines, which gives us the opportunity to appreciate the improvisation on sax by Milan Jancuric, or by Steps and Curls supported by a metronome rhythm on which the various soloists perform, including the accordion.

Other songs are more of an atmosphere, they tell stories, such as the intimate Don't Fall Me Fall with intense and suffused atmospheres or the poignant and melancholy lyricism of Blue Sparrow Dark Eyes which has its most expressive and suggestive moment in the central part when flute, piano and double bass alternate with great grace and delicacy to draw autumnal gray clouds. The disc ends with another persuasive ballad Dreams In You with the notes of the flute that color dreams and expectations with nostalgia. Jancuric proves to be an excellent musician with great command of the instrument and the ability to integrate it with those of other musicians, a sign of artistic and compositional maturity.