Vladimir Kostadinovic compares his experience during the September 5, 2024 session in New York's Samurai Studios that gestated this tour de force - titled Iris for his daughter, then 8 years old - to the pressure of competing in the Olympic Games. "You have only one chance, " says the 44-year-old Vienna-based drummer. "Everybody believes in you. Don't mess up now. We had one rehearsal. I come from a small place in Europe where we don't have that many opportunities to play NBA games with players-musicians of this capacity. You play a tour for one week, two weeks maximum, and then you have to wait a month. These musicians are challenged every single day. They grab you and you are safe." Towards dealing with the pressure, Kostadinovic absorbed and executed sage advice from tenor titan George Garzone, his "second musical father." "George told me: 'Take a risk. Jump from the cliff and swim. You can think when you're rehearsing or composing. But when you arrive on stage or in the studio, that's it - let's go!'" He rises to the occasion with a gold medal performance, deploying his formidable drumset skills towards ensemble imperatives with savoir faire and panache that NBA superstar Nikolai Jokic, a fellow Serbian, might appreciate. Kostadinovic traces the back story to May 2023, when he propelled the late trumpeter Jim Rotondi's Over Here [Criss-1417], a lovely quintet recital with tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza, pianist Danny Grissett, and bassist Josh Ginsburg, all American expats with whom he'd shared bandstands over the previous decade-plus. In the liner notes, Rotondi (who assumed his position as Professor of Trumpet at the University of Graz in 2010, a year after Kostadinovic graduated with a Masters from that same conservatory) stated his appreciation of Kostadinovic's exhaustive assimilation of hardcore jazz drum vocabulary as practiced by his own long-time partners Joe Farnsworth and Kenny Washington, adding: "he has other stuff that I really like - he breathes with the soloist, develops differently with them. He's getting stronger and stronger." The Album was recorded September 5, 2024 at the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio, NYC. Recording engineer Mike Marciano also did the editing, mixing and mastering at Systems Two, NYC. Produced by Jerry Teekens. Photography by Zoran Jelenic.