Łukasz Ojdana - piano
Maciej Garbowski - bass
Krzysztof Gradziuk - drums
UNIVERSAL 602537564392
By Adam Baruch
This is the third album by Polish Jazz vocalist Anna Gadt (a.k.a. Ania Stepniewska) and her first collaboration with the fabulous RGG trio: pianist Lukasz Ojdana, bassist Maciej Garbowski and drummer Krzysztof Gradziuk. The album consists of eleven original songs, ten of which were composed by Gadt and nine of which feature her lyrics, all in English. The tenth song uses a quote by American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, combined with another quote by American opera singer Beverly Sills, with the entire quote credited only to Emerson? The remaining song was composed by Garbowski and features lyrics by Polish poet Miron Bialoszewski. The album was recorded at Poland's finest recording facility, Studio Tokarnia, engineered as usual by the man with a pair of best ears in Poland, the studio owner Jan Smoczynski.
At the first glance this album
had the potential to achieve the status of one of the best Polish Jazz
recording in 2013: the finest Polish Jazz piano trio active on the scene, fascinating
music, highly sensitive vocal delivery, superb sound quality, in short a dream
come true. Sadly this potential proved to be unfulfilled as a result of
committing one single mistake, the same unforgivable mistake which hunts the
Polish Jazz vocal scene consistently since decades, namely the unexplainable
desire to sing in English. Why on earth would anybody, who is not a natural
English speaker, want to sing in that langue is a total mystery to me? It is
plainly obvious that the articulation, the pronunciation and the accent will be
always against you, so why even try? Time after time all Polish Jazz vocalist
fall into the same trap and nobody's learning; what a pity. This album is no
different; the vocals sung in English sound odd, unnatural and even bizarre at
times. As if to prove the case, the only song with the Polish lyrics is simply
heavenly and untouchable, as are the moments when Gadt is utilizing wordless
vocalese. On the bright side, the music composed by Gadt is simply excellent
from start to finish. Intelligent, atmospheric, versatile, moving, in short she
made no mistakes whatsoever in that department and deserves all the praise.
Of course there are plenty of
wonderful moments left to be enjoyed. The trio plays delightfully from start to
finish and stands up to the challenge of accompanying a singer, which is quite
different and in many respects more difficult that playing by themselves.
Together with their astounding album "Szymanowski" released earlier
this year, these two recordings firmly reassure their prime and unchallenged
standing, which withstood the ground shaking personnel change they went
through. They are simply beyond words. The way the trio improvises
"around" the songs Gadt composed is simply a genius at work. In spite
of the problem created by singing in English, Gadt is obviously a great
vocalist, with exquisite sensibility, musicality and musical intelligence. All
these qualities come through against all odds in these circumstances. One can
only imagine what a brilliant, superb album this would be if she had decided to
use Polish lyrics.
All things considered this is an
amazing album after all, even magnificent at times. A magnificent failure? Well
not quite, simply just another step on the long way which has no beaten tracks
and leads to a place worth going. You win some, you lose some, c'est la vie…
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