Magnolia Acoustic Quartet
Szymon Nidzworski - sax
Jakub Sokołowski - piano
Mateusz Dobosz - double bass
Patryk Dobosz - drums
guest: Tomasz Dąbrowski - trumpet
Magnolia Acoustic Quartet (2010)
By Maciej Nowotny
The band has been started in 2009 by saxophonist Szymon Nidzworski. But Magnolia Acoustic Quartet is obviously a team effort. Pianist Jakub Sokołowski composed most of the music while Mateusz Dobosz on double bass and Patryk Dobosz on drums provided it with very modern-sounding rhythm. They all graduated from excellent Musical Academies in Warsaw and Cracow. They picked up some rewards - most notably at Jazz Juniors festival in Cracow - which is even more significant when one knows that most jurors at Polish jazz festivals favor mainstream jazz.
But music of Magnolia Acoustic Quartet (MAQ) though clearly rooted in the tradition of jazz - evidenced by name of the band which refers to the tune played in New Orleans during funeral ceremonies - is by no means limited to its mainstream form. It draws a lot as much from free jazz as from classical music. By those references it might be labeled as "third stream" but I think it is better not to use this old-fashioned cliche to describe something that sounds entirely fresh and is directed toward future of the music.
Apart from regular members of the band this session features also trumpeter Tomasz Dąbrowski. He is a former student of Ostenda Music Academy in Denmark together with such musicians as guitarist Marek Kądziela, saxophonist Tomek Licak or pianist Artur Tuźnik. In recent years they made quite an entry on Polish jazz scene with series of excellent albums among which last year "Tom Trio" by Tomasz Dąbrowski stands out as both mature and distinctive voice of this new "Danish" wave in Polish jazz.
Going back to MAQ: what can I say more? This is simply one of the most spectacular debuts in Polish music in recent years! The music is so rich, so deep, so engaging that it is really difficult to believe this is their first album. Alas this CD is a private edition, available to buy only after concerts. If released and available in commercial circulation, it would definitely be counted among the best albums of the given year. Still the future looks bright for this band as new major player on Polish music publishing market - For Tune Records - has chosen their next project recorded with saxophonist Maciej Obara to be released soon in this year 2013. I am already impatiently waiting for this new record of theirs...
* in writing this text I used info available in this article: http://jazzarium.pl/kalendarz/magnolia-acoustic-quartet
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