
Marcin Kaletka - tenor & soprano saxophones
Szymon Mika - guitar
Max Mucha - double bass
David Hodek - drums
PRIVATE EDITION
We See The Light 59/62
SOLITON 1048
By Adam Baruch
This is an album by two veteran Polish Jazz musicians: guitarist/composer Krzysztof Puma Piasecki and saxophonist/composer Adam Wendt, recorded live at the early days of the pandemic (when such things were still possible) in the famous Polish Jazz club Pod Filarami. Rapper Eskaubei (a.k.a. Bartłomiej Skubisz) joins the duo on one track and adds some electronics on others. The album presents twelve original compositions: five by Piasecki, four by Wendt and three co-composed by them both.
The music is all melody based, moving between Blues/Fusion influences (Piasecki) and mainstream Jazz (Wendt), offering mostly beautiful melodic themes, full of typical Polish melancholy. The entire atmosphere of the album is unique, with the spooky ambience of the empty club and the poignant uncertainty of the pandemic influencing the proceedings.
Both Piasecki and Wendt perform brilliantly and their obvious mutual respect and understanding, as well as vast performing experience are immediately apparent here. Despite the limited instrumentation and the rather unusual guitar/sax pairing, the music sound just perfect and lacks nothing more to express the emotions involved. Piasecki's superb guitar parts, both as accompanist and soloist, are simply breathtaking. Wendt adds wave after wave of heartwrenching emotion and together the duo is as perfect as one might wish for.
Overall this is a beautiful album, full of great music and masterful performances, which is not trying to dazzle or surprise but concentrates on communicating music at its purest and most emotional form, which works here perfectly. The album's optimistic title certainly has a bit of prophecy in it, with the end of the pandemic now in sight. This album is highly recommended to guitar fanatics, as it offers some highly unusual craft, but also to all music lovers, who can enjoy it in its purest form.
Discipline Of Sun Ra
ASTIGMATIC 015
By Adam Baruch
The Polish Jazz ensemble EABS continues to produce young and bouncy contemporary Jazz, based on the tradition but at the same time sparkling with contemporary Pop culture and universally good taste, which naturally makes them extremely likeable to the young listeners. Following their interpretations of Polish Jazz classics they now move to the international scene taking up on the music of Sun Ra as the basis of their new album. Keyboardist Marek Pędziwiatr, bassist Paweł Stachowiak, drummer Marcin Rak, saxophonist Olaf Węgier, trumpeter Jakub Kurek and percussionist/sound effects man Spisek Jednego (a.k.a. Piotr Skorupski) dissect seven original compositions by Sun Ra, the Jazz cosmonaut, created between 1957 and 1979 and give them a kick towards the dancing floor.
The interpretations are pretty bold and one might wonder if the composer himself would have recognized his own compositions in most cases, but as far as I am concerned this music is way more acceptable to me than the original compositions, which of course speaks volumes as to my personal appreciation of Ra's music, which I find exceptionally boring. With the twist added by EABS, it finally does make sense and the lads certainly seem to have a lot of fun with it, which is fine with me.
As strange as it might sound, to me this is probably the best studio work by EABS so far, since they finally crystallized their formulas and managed to achieve the ideal mix of melodic riffs, extended soloing, sense of humor and fun, all combined together to perfection. As a result listening to this album is unadulterated fun from start to finish, creating a sort of idiosyncratic sub genre of Jazz, which is purified wonderful weirdness. I mean where else would one come across Free Form soloing, polyrhythmic banging and constantly shifting tempi, rapping and sound effects all making such wonderful sense together? Zappaesque madness at it's best…
Komeda, Ostatnia Retrospekcja
By Adam Baruch
This is the third album by Polish Jazz quintet Weezdob Collective, which comprises of harmonica player Kacper Smoliński, saxophonist Kuba Marciniak, guitarist Piotr Scholz, bassist Damian Kostka and drummer Adam Zagórski. The album presents eleven original compositions, two by Marciniak, four by Smoliński, one by Kostka, two by Scholz, one by Zagórski and finally one co-composed by Kostka and Zagórski. The text (in Polish) included on the album was written by Tomasz Lach and recited by Mariusz Zaniewski. Date and place of recording are not specified on the album's artwork.
As the album's title suggests, this is yet another project related to the legendary Godfather of Polish Jazz, pianist / composer Krzysztof Komeda. Despite the fact that Komeda's name and music was over time abused, misused and mistreated obsessively countless times, the temptation to gain attention is obviously stronger than decency and good taste.
The pretext this time is the text written by Lach, Komeda's adopted son, which consists of a series of reflections about his adoptive father, incorporated into the music written by the members of the ensemble, creating sort of radio sketch, a popular form of radio broadcast before television took over.
The music is series of unrelated composition, which have nothing to do with Komeda's music per se and if the intention was to create at least am atmospheric similarity, it fails to do so as far as I am concerned. These rather forgettable themes have simply no coherent continuity and although played in the background of the text being recited, offer little, if any, relation to the text itself.
The members of the ensemble are obviously well schooled and experienced musicians; hopefully they will make better decisions in the future. Overall this album not only does not pay any tribute to Komeda's name and status, but is a rather cynical and opportunistic venture, with no Artistic merit. Combined with a murky sound quality and incorrect balance between the music and the recitation, it is even difficult to listen to.
By Adam Baruch
This is an album by veteran Polish Jazz pianist/composer Andrzej Jagodziński recorded with his fabulous trio with bassist Adam Cegielski and drummer Czesław Bartkowski. As the title suggests, the album is dedicated to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and presents six of his compositions, beautifully transformed into the Jazz idiom.
Playing Bach by Jazz musicians is of course nothing new and the romance goes back to the early 1960s, when French pianist/composer Jacques Loussier made a grand career by Jazzing up Bach’s compositions for the crowds, and many other Jazz musicians since tried to tackle this task, including Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau, with varying results. Bach’s music, which undoubtedly is one of the absolute pinnacles of Human artistic ingenuity, in most cases is best served by being left alone in its original form and shape, with rare exceptions.
I am happy to see (or rather hear) that Jagodzinski and his trio are up to the challenge of successfully transforming Bach’s music into the Jazz realm, served by their great sensitivity, talents and of course extensive experience. They manage to avoid trivializing this great music, keeping the original sense of flow, melody and rhythm intact, and adding the Jazzy ornamentations with carful respect of the original compositions. This is not altogether surprising taking into consideration the sublime Jazz oriented interpretations of the music by Polish National composer Frederic Chopin, which Jagodziński and his cohorts managed to create in the past.
The performances are absolutely stellar, as expected, and although the piano is naturally in the epicenter of the sonic experience, the rhythm section also contributes some superb parts, which deserve no less admiration. Personally I hear a bit of Chopin on these interpretations of Bach, which again is hardly surprising, as Chopin’s music flows in the blood (or sub consciousness) of every Polish musician at all times.
Overall this is a wonderful album in every sense, both emotionally and intellectually, which deserves to be heard by every true lover of Jazz-Classical Fusion, Bach’s followers and Jazz piano trio enthusiasts all over the world. A true elixir for mind and body at these crazy days of misfortune and suffering.
On a personal note, almost exactly to a day last year I had the immense pleasure to attend a concert at a small Jazz club outside of Warsaw, where messieurs Jagodziński, Cegielski and Bartkowski (and others) were performing. This was an unforgettable evening of great music and friendship, especially since it was the last live concert I managed to attend before the pandemic and the last time I was abroad…