López & Kądziela – Augmentation (2017)

Lopez & Kądziela

Maciej Kądziela - saxophone
Xan Campos - piano
Johannes Vaht - bass
Carlos López - drums

Augmentation

JAZZ ACTIVIST 05



By Adam Baruch

This is the debut album by the young European quartet co-led by Spanish (Galician) drummer Carlos López and Polish saxophonist Maciej Kądziela, with Spanish (well, Galician again) pianist Xan Campos and Swedish bassist Johannes Vaht. The album presents eight original compositions, four composed by Lopez, three by Kądziela and one by Vaht.

The music is a wonderful example of young contemporary European Jazz, full of vigor and flare, based on melodic compositions but including an extensive degree of freedom, which enables novel improvisation and unexpected time signatures. The melodies are well structures and coherent harmonically, diverse stylistically and often include World Music influences, with some Iberian motifs clearly distinguishable.

The individual performances are all excellent, as expected form these well schooled and already quite experienced musicians. Fiery and inspired soloing and superb team work contribute to the overall result, which is a genuine pleasure to listen to.

Although most of these ensembles are created ad hoc in the burgeoning environment created at the Copenhagen's Rhythmic Music Conservatory, where many excellent European musicians study, hopefully this quartet will come together to record and tour, as it is unquestionably too good to be a one time affair. Definitely worth investigation and highly recommended for modern European Jazz connoisseurs!