OTHERS ABOUT ZRINKO

NINO ŠKRABE

In March of last year (2016.- editor's note), Zrinko Tutić (Banja Luka, March 2, 1955), a celebrated composer, poet, arranger and producer, called me and asked me to write a foreword for Arsen Dedić's sheet music album. It was a difficult, but also a sweet task, because I knew Arsen well, befriended and worked with him for more than 40 years. Zrinko was the editor of that edition which gave the whole venture an extra charm because we are close friends and three-times compatriots (Bosnians, Jaskans and Plešivičans).

In November of last year, Hrvoje Markulj-Cobra, another dear friend and "schoolmate" (IV. high school forever!) contacted me as the editor of Zrinko Tutić's music album and asked me to write the foreword for that edition as per Zrinko's wish. Another difficult, but also sweet task... this time the task may be even more difficult because I lived and grew with Arsen's opus, and his musical examples and his songs were an integral part of my everyday life.

I met and became close to Zrinko only fifteen years ago, that was in the period when he had already achieved his greatest successes and received his most commercial compositional results. As a passionate music lover, I followed all kinds of Croatian music and admired Zrinko's extraordinary range, his amazing versatility and his unusual creative and organizational zeal. However, as a fan of classics, swing, jazz, canzone, chanson and fado, film and Broadway music and original country and rock 'n' roll, I considered Zrinko Tutić, the undisputed king of Croatian pop music, a resident of another, musical planet foreign to me. To tell the truth, I thought even then that Zrinko's compositions, unlike the works of some of his other celebrated colleagues, never cross the line of good taste and constantly remain outside cheap fashion trends. Only when we became friends I became more interested in Zrinko's collected works and listened with interest to the albums with his songs, especially the "Gold Collection" with 40 greatest hits and the anthology collection "Na svoju ruku". On this occasion, I again carefully listened to 30 selected songs, according to editor Hrvoje Markulj, the most representative of Zrinko's compositions. In doing so, I discovered some interesting facts, which probably neither the editor nor Zrinko himself paid too much attention to.

All these compositions were created in a span of only 15 years, from 1981 ("Doris") until 1996 ("Ja živim za tebe" and "Sveta ljubav"). If we ignore the three earliest, also my favorite ones from that list, were created during Zrinko's singer-songwriter phase ("Doris", "Bježi, bježi djevojčice" and "Manuele"), then we will see that all favorite anthology songs were created in just 10 years, from 1986 to 1996. Therefore, Zrinko composed the last of them at the age of 41. Thinking about these facts, I came to some, I believe, interesting conclusions.

Zrinko began his percussive, famous composer and producer period in the second half of the eighties, when the light of freedom and democracy began to appear on the horizon of our lives, our people and our country and independence. He continued it when these ideals were finally realized and when they had to be defended in a bloody and cruel defensive war, and ended when Croatia was liberated and when the desired peace was finally achieved. Alike every artist who lives and breathes with his people, Zrinko Tutić then, consciously or unconsciously, felt that people should be provided by hope and comfort, that song should strengthen hearts and souls. In the years of war, uncertainty, fear and anxiety superb works are often created, imbued with true love, joy, rapture and enthusiasm. This happened, for example, in the thirties of the last century in America, when during the Great Depression the American film "dream factories" realized their top products. This is how "Moja domovina" was created in 1991 (Zrinko's collaboration with Rajko Dujmić), today, without a doubt, the second Croatian national anthem, which brought together the strongest possible Croatian singing team; like Mihanović and Runjanin's "Lijepa naša", she countered the wild, aggressive army with words and sounds of love, harmony and beauty. "Zlatne godine", a song from the film of the same name, has become a kind of Croatian national spring anthem.
Songs like "Ti si moj ljubav stara", "Dalmatinka", "Kad si sam", "Ne budite me danas" or "Bijele ruže" today they may be hits for coffee shops or wedding parties, but in the early nineties they were sung with hope in the hearts and a rosary around the necks of our veterans, their girlfriends and their parents. Listening to this selection of selected songs by Zrinko Tutić, we remain amazed by their diversity and tremendous scope of their author's talent. Arsen, along with Nikica Kalogjera and Đorđe Novković, his role model, once told me: "Zrinko is an incredible combination of enormous talent and great diligence. Such people are rarely born." He was authoritative to say something like that because he himself was of the same breed. If we recall the performers of those selected songs, then along with the singer-songwriter Tutić and Jadranka Stojaković we come across the names of four singers (Doris Dragović, Tajči, Severina and Maja Blagdan) and four singers (Željko Bebek, Massimo, Gibonni and Mišo Kovač). The way in which Zrinko subordinated his composition to each of them is simply fascinating. It is as if the authors of those compositions were eight different composers, and not just one. Singing this songs performers become co-authors of Tutić's songs and get the opportunity to show their personality and their specific giftedness expressed as much as possible. These are songs of different musical genres and moods, in which, along with the sounds and smells of the Mediterranean, the interpretation of three top Dalmatian stars (Torcida queen Doris, painfully sensitive Maja and mischievous Severina, in those still a singer in the golden days) can also hear urban, Zagreb teenage pop (Tajči), as well as pastoral rock of stoner genes, "Thompson before Thompson" (Željko Bebek) and subtle "soul rock" (Massimo). My only regret is that he is in this selection omitted "Dvorište" (text and performance by Miroslav Škora) because with the tambura atmosphere of the song "Ti si moja ljubav stara" it would complete the Slavonic, Pannonian component of Tutić's creativity.
If we take a look at the authors of the texts of the selected songs, we will see that Zrinko is the author or co-author of fifteen of them (mostly these are the most poetically refined lines), Nenad Ninčević is the author of six texts (mainly Mediterranean atmosphere), Alka Vuica, Marina Tucaković and Miroslav Drljača Rus (co)sign three texts each, and Stevo Cvikić, Gibonni, Bora "Čorba" Đorđević, Marko Balen and Željko Pavičić one each. Although his immense, God-given giftedness presented to the masses, Zrinko Tutić always approached his audience with respect and appreciation, so it is visible and in his choice of texts and songwriters. As a complete author, composer and lyricist, we can with rest assured soul compare him with two giants of American and world entertainment music history, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Instead of these, in the judgment of the editor, and the author himself, Tutić's most popular compositions, in his oeuvre of approx. 1000 works, we could find excellent songs for at least another ten sheet music albums.
They could do a special album with his lovely songs for children (he wrote more than a hundred of them) or songs for the television musical "Bajka o maslačku" and music for the TV series "Marko Marulić". In collaboration with the lyricist Željko Pavičić, he wrote an excellent musical "Majka Božja Bistrička", but the on-duty curators of Croatian musicals prefer to put already seen ones on stage and chewed up movie hits. Personally, I would be most pleased with an album with his singer-songwriter works or with his film melodies, and loyal fans of his music probably an album with numerous awards festival songs.

Zrinko is also a great poet, and his verses have been set to music by many famous composers. Sheet musican album with Zrinko's verses and melodies by other authors would also be a real treat. Many people don't even know that Zrinko's verses with music by Rajko Dujmić were turned into some great hits of Novi Fosili, such as "Milena", "Bilo mi je prvi put", "Ako se rastanemo" or "Još te volim".
After a stormy creative period, presented in this music album, which reminds me like this from a distance at the former total football of "Ajax" and Johan Cruyff, Zrinko Tutić did not throw a spear into the thorns. He still composes, writes, acts and advises, but with measure, restrained and rational. It reminds me of a medieval knight who roared in many tournaments and battlefields, won numerous victories, received severe wounds and retired to his castle at the height of his glory on top of the enchanted hill. Or on the famous gunslinger and sheriff, who tamed all the gangs and tamed all the wild ones, settles in Arizona and Texas, so he rode off to meet his calm and beloved wife who was waiting for him on a small ranch west of Pecos.
Zrinko Tutić has such a castle and such a ranch, on top of the wine-growing, magical Plešivica, the pride of the town of Jastrebarsko. There, like the hero from Andrić's works, he stays silent for hours and looks at the blue plain and in the distance dreams of his loved ones who are no longer there and his beloved hometown, lost, kidnapped and cursed, where Bishop Komarica, like Davy Crockett in the Alamo, leads the last holy battle. Proud Bosnia, the country of his childhood, where you could not survive without dialogue and tolerance, coexistence with others and others, left a deep mark on the life and work of Zrinko Tutić. Although he was robbed of his homeland and childhood, he, like his ancient uncles, the Franciscans of Bosna Srebrena, witnesses the culture of conversation and tolerance. A born leader and unsurpassed communicator, thorough, curious, direct and honest to the point of pain, accustomed to the glare of the spotlight, he would have an equally successful career as a sports coach, public tribune or prime minister. He often hides his primordial illness and innate sensibility behind caustic discussions, cynical quips and sharp humor.
"The great magus of variety", "the author of general practice", "the godfather of pop music", "the Midas of discography", "the one who strives for perfect versatility" (Siniša Škarica), "searcher for the lost" (Branko Vukšić), "blue butterfly" (Enes Kišević), associate of probably all of important Croatian singers and musicians, multiple Eurosong participant, initiator and founder of Croatian Band Aid, Tutico and Porina and countless other projects, for me he is first and foremost a dear friend.

He is happiest in the family circle, when Karmen, Tea, Ivan, Martina and grandchildren are close to him, when with close friends (among them necessarily our dear Joža Cvitanović) enjoys a glass of spritzer with the smell of barbecue, with an eternal cigarette in his hand. As a true Bosnian, he is a member of the Matica Hrvatska Jastrebarsko. The peasants of Plešivica adore him, and he also wrote their anthem, "Plešivica curica". Still
he doesn't understand their dialect and has been asking them for years to finally be equipped with subtitles. Maybe it's my privilege what I usually meet him far from the light of the stage, without armor and sword, without colt and Winchester.

Zrinko is erudite, with whom you can talk for hours not only about music but also about handball, basketball, archangels, saints, brother Zvjezdan Linić and about a thousand other topics. With him, it is a grace to be silent, when the gentle dusk descends on the hills of Plešivice, and in the valley of Jaska the first fireflies are lit with the Angelus from the tower of Saint George.
This is an opportunity to express my gratitude and recognition to the publishers of this series of music albums, the Croatian Composer Society and Cantus, the editors and initiators of that series, among whom is of course Zrinko. It is a kind of a commendable "back to the future". We should not forget that the most beautiful and significant compositions in history are fun music created and spread in the era of Tin Pan Alley, top New York sheet music publishers.

In today's time of universal alienation, various sound carriers and the Internet, when everyone is staring at some kind of screens and small screens, armed with headphones of all possible formats, these music albums invite you to get together with friends and family, to the joy of sharing , making music and actively enjoying the evergreen works of the greats of Croatian popular music. Zrinko Tutić is among them certainly "primus inter pares".

 

Preface to the book of sheet music by Zrinko Tutić – 30 songs from the edition of Zabavne melodije
(Courtesy of HDS Cantus)