Gniewomir Tomczyk/Project - Pieces Of My Journey (2020)

Gniewomir Tomczyk/Project

MIN t - vocals
Maciej Kądziela - saxophone
Zdzisław Kalinowski - keyboards
Gniewomir Tomczyk - drums

and others

Pieces Of My Journey

SOLITON 1038

By Adam Baruch

This is the third album by Polish Jazz drummer/composer Gniewomir Tomczyk, recorded with a core quartet including vocalist MIN t (a.k.a. Martyna Kubicz), saxophonist Maciej Kądziela and keyboardist Zdzisław Kalinowski. A long list of guests appears on selected tracks. The album presents nine original compositions, eight composed or co-composed by Tomczyk and one by Kądziela. There are also six bonus tracks which are either remixes or radio edits of the album’s tracks.

The music shows clearly the path Tomczyk has been following since the start of his career, moving gradually away from the traditional concept of Jazz into contemporary Pop. Although his music still carries some marginal Jazz accents, the emphasis is on production, contemporary sound and highly melodic contents.

Although not exactly my cup of poison, the music is professionally put together and Tomczyk knows exactly what he is doing. Make no mistake, he is quite an accomplished Jazz drummer is he wants to be, but obviously his current desire is to produce elegant and quite sophisticated Pop music, which is every iota as good as the best accomplishments in this area over the pond and anywhere else around the globe, without being disgusting and plainly primitive, as most Pop productions are these days. Large parts of this music are instrumental and there are some nice solo parts by Kądziela and the guest artists, with makes the music shift between Jazz-Pop Fusion and Smooth Jazz, with a bit of Avant-Garde touch for good measure, which awaits the listener just when he is blissfully floating towards the horizon.

As already said earlier, this is not "strictly" Jazz, but at least it does not pretend to be so. It operates within clearly defined cross-genre borders, offering its own rules and production values, which are highly effective. I really enjoy this music, here it is, I admit it! It has its time and its place and does not replace my love for Jazz or Classic Rock or anything else, but I do appreciate the effort and talent put into it and completely non-snobbishly enjoy it. And as usual I don’t give a damn what others think. Well done!