Wojciech Gogolewski - piano
Paweł Pańta - bass
Adam Lewandowski - drums, cajon
Medytacje Wiejskiego Listonosza Jazzowego
SRMT 2015
By Adam Baruch
This is an album by Polish Jazz piano trio led by veteran pianist/composer Wojciech Gogolewski, with bassist Paweł Pańta and drummer Adam Lewandowski. As the album's title suggests, at least to those familiar with the Polish music scene, this album is dedicated to the music by the legendary Polish Rock group Skaldowie and pays tribute to their extraordinary talents. The album presents ten songs Skaldowie created during their heyday, all composed by Andrzej Zieliński (one of the two Zieliński brothers who led the group) and arranged for Jazz trio by Gogolewski.
It is of course completely
impossible for someone like me, who grew up listening to the music of
Skaldowie, to be in any way objective while listening to this album, and indeed
I don't intend to be objective at all. This is a marvelous piece of music in
every respect, even without the tsunami of nostalgia, which floods my brain
while listening to it, since it perfectly holds water just by being what it
really is, i.e. an excellent piano trio album playing some superbly crafted
music, beautifully recorded and perfectly executed.
Of course the music of
Zieliński presents some of the most incredibly weaved melodies on this planet,
full of "impossible" chord changes and weird harmonies, tempi shifts
and other musicological mumble-jumble, which most people have absolutely no
idea about, but which simply work wonders and create some of the most beautiful
songs ever written, which made our childhood and then adolescence so incredibly
beautiful. Comparing Skaldowie to the Beatles would have been mostly unfair to
the Polish group, as they were light-years ahead musically. The fact that their
music transfers so gracefully into the Jazz idiom is a great proof of its
quality, whereas most Jazz arrangements of Beatles songs never really rise
above pastiche.
I am pretty sure this album
should be universally appealing to every Jazz connoisseur around, even those
who can't find Poland
on the map. This music is simply universal and its elegance and typical
European sophistication is irresistible. I can only wholeheartedly thank
the people involved in creating this masterpiece for the immense pleasure it
has bestowed upon me. Perhaps some listeners, happy with what they find here,
will reach out for the original Skaldowie albums, where this music originates
from, to take another step on the path of exploration. Bless you all!
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