Stanisław Słowiński - violin
Zbigniew Szwajdych - trumpet, flugelhorn
Katarzyna Pietrzko - piano
Justyn Małodobry - double bass
Max Olszewski - drums
Landscapes Too Easy To Explain
HEVHETIA 0139
By Adam Baruch
This is the debut album by a quintet led by Polish Jazz violinist/composer Stanisław Słowiński, which also includes trumpeter Zbigniew Szwajdych, pianist Katarzyna Pietrzko, bassist Justyn Małodobry and drummer Maksymilian Olszewski. Together they perform seven original compositions, all by the leader.
The music is an excellent
example of modern Polish Jazz, which although melody based and well within the
mainstream convention, manages to maintain a very high level of compositions
and performances. It is soaked with typical Polish melancholy and Slavic
melodic motifs, and of course focuses on the violin as the leading instrument, and
as a result one can hardly find a more spiritually "Polish Jazz"
album than this one. The pairing of the violin and the trumpet as the two lead
instruments proves to be extremely effective and harmonically attuned, in spite
of its rarity.
As usual with the new
generation of the Polish Jazz musicians, Słowinski, despite his young age, has
already an impressive list of accomplishments to his credit, which includes
leading/membership in several projects, including as diverse directions as Improvised
Music on one hand and Classical Music on the other. This album, which sits, as
already mentioned, comfortably within the mainstream Jazz idiom, presents yet
another facet of Słowinski's versatility and is primarily dedicated to
presenting his compositions. But of course his performances on the violin are
full of beautiful sensitivity and technical excellence.
It is worth mentioning that
Słowinski is yet another representative of the Polish
Jazz Violin
School, which enjoys an incredible
renaissance in the last decade, and places Poland in the leading position as
far as violin artistry is concerned in the Jazz field. He joins the ranks of
many of his colleagues, who proudly continue the traditional role of the violin
as one of the most expressive instruments available to mankind.
The rest of the quintet members
are all of course excellent performers as well. Szwajdych delivers melodic
accompaniment and excellent solo parts, Pietrzko lays out the harmonic layer
upon which the tunes progress and fills the gaps with her delicate but solid
statements, and hopefully will play more solo parts on future recordings. The
rhythm sections provides admirable and flawless support to the soloists, and
plays always at the right levels to make the music a whole bigger that the sum
of its parts. This is definitely a very
impressive debut, which comes with a firm recommendation to follow these
wonderful young people in their future endeavors. Well done indeed!
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