ASAF - Silent Prayer (2020)

ASAF

Joanna Gajda - piano
Maciej Sikała - tenor & soprano saxophones
Franciszek Pospieszalski - bass
Piotr Jankowski - drums
Michał Bąk - bass (5)
Barbara Pospieszalska - vocal (7)

Silent Prayer


SOLITON 669

By Adam Baruch

This is the second album by the Polish Jazz quartet ASAF, following a sixteen years break in its activity. The current lineup includes saxophonist Maciej Sikała, pianist Joanna Gajda, bassist Franciszek Pospieszalski (who replaced the original bassist Michał Barański) and drummer Piotr Jankowski. Bassist Michał Bąk and vocalist Barbara Pospieszalska guest each on one track.

The album presents seven original compositions, four recorded in studio and three recorded live on various occasions. Sikała and Gajda composed two of pieces each, Pospieszalski and Bąk composed one piece each and the last is by Polish Jazz bassist/composer Andrzej Cudzich, who sadly departed at a tragically young age in 2003. The debut album by ASAF from 2004 was dedicated to the memory of Cudzich.

The music is strictly mainstream Jazz oriented, with solid melodic themes and straightforward arrangements, which offers little innovation or challenge but is excellently executed by the participating musicians, who are all highly professional. The superb saxophone parts by Sikała, who is after all one of the top Polish Jazz players, are especially impressive. Despite the fact that the album mixes studio and live recordings, the overall sound quality is very good and the album offers a coherent sound and stylistic continuity.

The nature of the music is rather contemplative and as the album's title and individual track titles (as well as the album's liner notes) suggest, the music is an attempt to offer a spiritual message with the music serving as a medium. The atmosphere of some of the compositions is definitely soaked in deep melancholy, which of course every listener can interpret in his own way. Overall this is a good mainstream Jazz album, which should make fans of music closer to the American rather than European Jazz aesthetic very happy. Great compositions and perfect execution is exactly what the doc prescribed. Definitely worth checking out!