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piątek, 7 listopada 2014

Jacek Kochan – Third Of Three (2014)

Jacek Kochan

Mauro Schiavone - acoustic piano
Dominik Wania - electric piano
Jacek Kochan - drums, papersonix, trashsonix, electronics

Third Of Three



AUDIO CAVE 001

By Adam Baruch

This is an album by Polish Jazz drummer/composer Jacek Kochan, one of the most prolific and internationally involved Polish musicians. On the album he presents a trio led by him and also including two pianists: the Italian Mauro Schiavone, who plays acoustic piano and the Polish Dominik Wania, who plays the electric piano, both playing side by side with the leader. The trio presents eight original compositions, all by Kochan.

All three instrumentalist need little introduction and anybody familiar with the Polish Jazz scene should be aware of Kochan's achievements since the 1980s. He released close to twenty albums as a leader, many of which feature top Jazz players from around the world. Schiavone has already a proven record as an excellent player and Wania, who is the youngest trio member, is one of the "hottest" Jazz musicians on the Polish scene in the last decade.

A trio consisting of a drummer and two pianists is highly atypical and I can't recall any other example of such musical configuration prior to this one. Consequently the music sounds quite strange and unusual, and takes a while to get used to. The compositions are also eerie, somewhere between industrial and ambient, with twisted melodic contents and jumpy rhythmical patterns, in short definitely not your average easy listening Jazz experience. After a while this strange brew starts to make sense and exposes an exciting listening adventure, which is definitely different from most other stuff one comes across, all for the best of course.

Overall this is quite an ambitious piece of music, requiring attentive and repeated listening in order to be truly appreciated. Kochan is to be congratulated for exploring new areas and not standing still, like many other players of his generation. Definitely worth exploring!

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