The distinctive details of this artist's life include his relatively large exposure to the international modern jazz audience, his reputation primarily as a composer and conductor within that genre, and the shifting sands of how his nationality would have to be described. Several wars would be fought in and around his hometown of Sarajevo in order to decide such matters once and for all, or at least that's the notion of the politicians.
Mladen Gutesha would have been considered simply a Yugoslavian back in the '40s and '50s, especially if such information could be simply referenced from the name of one his main employers, the Yugoslavian Broadcasting System.
Sometimes known as
Bobby Gutesha, he eventually became involved in orchestrations for some of the ECM label's productions on a grander scale, famed modern jazz producer
Manfred Eicher combining
Gutesha with the firm's leading lights, pianist
Keith Jarrett and saxophonist
Jan Garbarek.
Gutesha's background includes classical studies in conducting undertaken at the Belgrade Conservatory during a 14-year period that certainly must have included many interruptions due to political turmoil, 1945 through 1959. Even prior to this
Gutesha had taught himself trombone, which he utilized to garner employment in various dance orchestras in and around Belgrade.
By the mid-'50s he also began to get jobs in nearby Germany, arranging pieces for a radio orchestra that was based out of Stuttgart. Top American jazz players such as
Miles Davis and
Lee Konitz were featured as soloists with this group; the orchestra also created a broadcast in which
Gutesha arranged pieces for the orchestra and
the Modern Jazz Quartet. Scribbling in the impassioned yet classy manner of modernists such as
Gil Evans and
Bill Russo or the slightly cheesier
Michel Legrand,
Gutesha placed arrangements with the fussy
Benny Goodman as well as regularly on various genre German television broadcasts and films. He continues to be based out of Stuttgart, a hotspot for ECM. ~ Eugene Chadbourne