Jakub Dybżyński Equilateral Trio – Intuitive Inversions (2016)

Jakub Dybżyński Equilateral Trio

Jakub Dybżyński - clarinet
Mariusz Praśniewski - bass
Karol Domański - drums

Intuitive Inversions

HEVHETIA 0135



By Adam Baruch

This is the debut album by Polish Jazz clarinetist/composer Jakub Dybżyński recorded with his trio called Equilateral Trio, which also includes bassist Mariusz Praśniewski and drummer Karol Domański. All trio members are graduates of Music Academies in Denmark, where many young Polish Jazz musicians study and often also stay in the last decade, and where this album was recorded. Together they perform eight original compositions, all by Dybżyński.

The music is quite diverse and moves between melodic modern Jazz and open compositions which are closer to Free Jazz. Some compositions have a steady swinging rhythmic drive others are much less restrained rhythmically, in short an interesting mixture of melodies, rhythms and musical freedom, which works out very well.

Dybżyński is a skilled player, but for the moment lacks the finesse displayed by the veteran Polish Jazz clarinetists. He is however certainly on the right track and will surely gain the necessary experience in the years to come. His compositional skills are already quite mature, and the material on this album is definitely very promising. The rhythm section is really excellent and handles the complex rhythmic patterns with ease and elegance, carrying the music steadily even during the free form passages. They are perfect accompanists to the delicate clarinet sound, delivering an overall powerful message to the listener.

The open, free form compositions are the most impressive parts on this album, and hopefully will be more prominent in the future recordings by the trio. But even on the steady swinging tunes the trio plays interestingly enough to keep the listener fully engrossed in the music. The clarinet is sadly not as popular in Jazz as it deserves to be, and hearing young musicians pursuing the great clarinet Jazz tradition is very encouraging. This is definitely an impressive debut and hopefully will be followed up by no less impressive recordings in the feature. Well done!