Zbigniew Seifert – Polish Radio Jazz Archives Vol. 32 (2018)

Zbigniew Seifert

Zbigniew Seifert - violin, alto saxophone
Jarosław Śmietana - guitar
Janusz Grzywacz - electric piano
Jan Jarczyk - piano
Zbigniew Wegehaupt - bass
Jan Gonciarczyk - bass
Mieczysław Górka - drums
Janusz Stefański - drums


Polish Radio Jazz Archives Vol. 32

POLSKIE RADIO 2145

By Adam Baruch

This is the thirty-second installment in the series of releases initiated by the Polish Radio, which presents archive Jazz recordings from the radio vaults. Radio recordings are always a fabulous source of remarkable material, and as far as Polish Jazz history is concerned, the Polish Radio, which was a state monopoly for 45 years, recorded over time a plethora of invaluable material, which apart from the albums released by the Polskie Nagrania record company (also a state monopoly), is the only available additional source of Polish Jazz recordings. For many years Polish Radio recorded concerts presented during Poland's most important Jazz venues, including the annual Jazz Jamboree Festival and many other festivals as well.

The seven tracks presented here were recorded by one of the most iconic Polish Jazz figures: saxophonist/violinist/composer Zbigniew Seifert, who sadly died at a ridiculously young age succumbing to cancer. Influenced by the music of John Coltrane, Seifert revolutionized the Polish Jazz violin school and achieved international recognition. All the tracks are original compositions by Seifert.

The first five tracks, recorded just three months before Seifert's death (in November 1978), were recorded live at the "Pod Jaszczurami" Jazz club in Kraków. They were recorded by a quintet, which also included guitarist Jarosław Śmietana (also not with us anymore, another victim of cancer), keyboardist Janusz Grzywacz, bassist Zbigniew Wegehaupt (my dear and sadly also departed friend) and drummer Mieczysław Górka. Grzywacz and Górka were at the time members of the legendary Polish Jazz-Rock ensemble Laboratorium. The music, although composed by Seifert, gets here a Fusion oriented treatment, as a result of the fact that all four members of the quintet except Seifert were involved with Fusion at the time. Nevertheless the music is superb in every sense and the fact that it remained unreleased to this very day is a Cultural crime!

The sixth track originates from a recording Seifert made with the Polish Radio Jazz Studio Orchestra directed by Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski in 1972. It presents him as a soloist backed up by an excellent Jazz orchestra, performing one of his early compositions, which is also previously unreleased.

The seventh and last track goes even further back and was recorded in 1970 during the thirteenth edition of the Jazz Jamboree Festival. On this track Seifert plays saxophone and is accompanied by pianist Jan Jarczyk, bassist Jan Gonciarczyk and drummer Janusz Stefański. This track was already released in 2010 by the great Polish reissue label GAD Records on the album "Nora", dedicated to Seifert's early recordings, and the inclusion of this track here is redundant and somewhat questionable.

The beautifully restored sound quality is excellent and the warm ambience of the analog recording is a true joy. As usual with this series, which is very reasonably priced, I miss the presence of "in depth" liner notes/booklet, which should convey the circumstances at which this music was recorded and its importance to the development of Jazz in Poland. Nevertheless this is an absolutely essential piece of Jazz history which every Jazz fan will surely consider an absolute must.

Zbigniew Seifert Quartet - Nora (GAD, 2010) by Adam Baruch

Zbigniew Seifert Quartet


Zbigniew Seifert (as)
Jan Jarczyk (p)
Janusz Stefański (dr)
Jan Gonciarczyk (b)

Gad Records, 2010



Adam Baruch (check his music boutique www.jazzis.com) on best archive recording of last year. Highly recommended!

This wonderful album collects all the existing recordings by the early Jazz quartet led by Polish violinist / saxophonist / composer Zbigniew Seifert, a world class virtuoso who was unfortunately taken away from this world by the ever-so-cruel cancer at the ridiculous age of 32. Seifert discovered Jazz while being a student at a music high school, where he studied classical music. Immediately stricken by Jazz, he started to live a double life, continuing his degree studies as a classical violinist and in parallel playing and later leading his own Jazz quartet. Seifert almost immediately moved into modern Jazz, even ultra-modern at the time, as his immediate model would be the late period John Coltrane. Seifert's hypersensitive and well trained ears were able to follow Coltrane's convoluted music note by note, thus enabling him to absorb his style. In order to emphasize the separation between his classical violin training Seifert played the alto saxophone exclusively at the early stages of his career, returning to the violin only much later, a move which gained him his international recognition and success, cut short soon after by his untimely death. By the end of the 1960s Seifert was a permanent member in the Tomasz Stanko quintet, Poland's pioneering Free Jazz outfit at the time, as well as leading his own quartet with pianist Jan Jarczyk, bassist Jan Gonciarczyk and drummer Janusz Stefanski (who was also a member of the Stanko quintet). 

The quartet never recorded an album for the "Polish Jazz" series, but three of their performances were recorded by the Polish Radio and are presented on this album: The 1969 concert at the Jazz nad Odra Festival and the 1969 and 1970 concerts at the Jazz Jamboree Festival – all together eight tracks, only two of which (taken from the 1969 JJ) were previously released on record in a various artists compilation entitled "New Faces In Polish Jazz" (Polish Jazz Vol. 20). Seifert composed five of the tunes, Jarczyk one and the other two are standards. The music is just sensational, mostly almost Free, with long and well developed solos by Seifert and Jarczyk, with superb backing by the rhythm section. That kind of music would fit perfectly well anywhere in the world at that time, but taking into account the fact it comes from Poland, a country deep beyond the Iron Curtain with minimal exposure to the latest trends and under a Socialist regime, which does not tolerate artistic deviance, it is an absolute miracle. 

The historic importance of these recordings is invaluable, especially since the quartet wasn't able to secure a proper studio recording in a reality when the only record company on the market was state owned and run by party officials. Thank God for the Polish Radio archives and the initiative to compile and release this album. Although "too little too late" applies here, so does "better this than nothing". I'll add that in order to fully appreciate this music in proper historic perspective and its meaning in the history of Polish (and Eastern European) Jazz, I'd recommend reading the recently published Zbigniew Seifert excellent biography entitled "Man of the Light", by Aneta Norek – alas this privilege is limited to people who can read Polish (unless the book gets translated into English, which it truly deserves). In the meantime savor this fantastic music, as it lost nothing of its intensity over time. A must to all Polish Jazz lovers!

Sample of music from this album:

Author of text: Adam Baruch

http://www.adambaruch.com/

Zbigniew Seifert Quartet - Nora (GAD, 2010) by Maciej Nowotny

This album is sure winner of year 2010 in best Polish jazz historical recording category. The band was created in 1962 in Cracow by Zbigniew Seifert (as) who invited to it following musicians: Jan Jarczyk (p), Janusz Stefański (d) and Jan Gonciarczyk (b). They played together for 8 years to follow, took part in most significant jazz festivals in Poland where they made excellent impression but they appeared only in two songs on album issued in 1969 titled New Faces In Polish Jazz. Damn communist blockheads! So much loss they made to our jazz and culture because of their desire to impose on us what we should like or listen to! So only after more than 40 years later under the private initiative of few people who are in love with Polish jazz we now have a chance to listen the first, standalone album of this magnificent band.

The program on this record is simply breathtaking: it starts with two standards, East Of The Sun (B. Bowman) and Blue In Green (M. Davis) which are both very good, but the second one is truly sensational! Third is title track of the album Nora, composition of Z. Seifert, which proves to be as interesting as its more famous predecessors and they all come from concert given by the band at Jazz Nad Odrą festival on 9th March 1969. 

Next three pieces are Reminiscencje (Reminiscences - Z. Seifert), Złudzenie (Phantom - J. Jarczyk) and Taniec Garbusa (Dance of the humpback - Z. Seifert) and were recorded in Autumn the same year (Warsaw Jazz Jamboree festival 1969) and they show clear progress band made in just half a year. They seem to advance as band in leaps and bounds showing with every important concert more self-assurance, creativity, obviously being on right track to develop their unique style joining in promising melange typical Polish cool jazz with hard bop and and free jazz influences.

Last two tracks are the best proof for such a hypothesis as they contain two tracks Ten Niezastąpiony ( The Irreplaceable - Z. Seifert) and Meandry (Meanders - Z.Seifert, J. Jarczyk), which are the longest, most brooding, dense and therefore attractive pieces on this album. They show how massive was potential of this band. But soon after this concert was given in autumn 1970 on next Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw quartet was disbanded as three of its musicians Seifert, Stefański and Gonciarczyk were invited by Tomasz Stańko to form quintet, his first band after Krzysztof Komeda untimely death in Hollywood, USA. So new history in Polish jazz started, no less significant, perhaps even more, which brought soon breakthrough Music For K recording of Stańko first quintet. It is really a great and unexpected pleasure to listen to this record first and then to Stańko record and see how rapidly Polish jazz developed in those years. Zbigniew Seifert made his own great career in 70ties giving up alto saxophone for violin.

Finally let me pay hommage for people involved in this project from the side of GAD record company which made it possible for us to enjoy this hidden gem. The level of mastering the sound, of edition (great photos) and of fantastic linear notes by Aneta Norek (translated into English and German) is the highest possible. My deepest respect for all people who made this fantastic project possible! (http://www.gadrecords.pl/en/index.html)

Please listen to first recording from this album East Of The Sun (B. Bowman):

Author of text: Maciej Nowotny (http://kochamjazz.blox.pl/html)