Franciszek Raczkowski - piano
Paweł Wszołek - double bass
Piotr Budniak - drums
Apprentice
FOR TUNE 0066
By Adam Baruch
This is the debut album by Polish Jazz pianist/composer Franciszek Raczkowski, recorded in a classic piano trio setting with bassist Paweł Wszołek and drummer Piotr Budniak. It presents seven original compositions, all by Raczkowski.
As the
title suggests, Raczkowski is still at the very early stage of his career and is
searching for his personal language, both as a player and a composer. His music
is floating somewhere between mainstream Jazz and more ambitious explorations
of the melodic and harmonic spheres, quite diverse and obviously still
uncertain as to the final outcome. As a result the album is somewhat uneven,
with some of the pieces being very interesting and others significantly less
so. Although the music sounds very melodic, there are but a few clear melodic
themes to which the listener can cling to or follow. The rest sounds just as
fragmented statements, hold together by the framework of a tune, but not really
making sense musically.
The
music is very well performed, although Raczkowski does not display a wide
dynamic range in his performances, which is splendidly picked up by the rhythm
section, which does a wonderful job here. Wszołek keeps the tunes together
bravely, even when the music seems to disintegrate, and Budniak keeps it alive
with his delicate but masterly strokes.
After
repeated listening to this album I could not honestly make up my mind if it
presents a pianist/composer of great hope, as some of the statements I read
about it claim. The comparisons to Keith Jarrett are pretty far fetched and
might prove more damaging than constructive. I'll have to wait patiently for
the next album to see if Raczkowski is the "next" big thing on the
Polish scene. In the meantime this album surely deserves to be listened to and
as a debut it is altogether quite nice.
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