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Jazz Articles about Slawomir Kurkiewicz
About Slawomir Kurkiewicz
Instrument: Bass, acoustic
Joe Lovano: Homage
by Alberto Bazzurro
Decolla sognante, aereo, quasi astratto, il nuovo album di Joe Lovano, che recupera per l'occasione il sodalizio con l'efficientissimo trio “made in Poland" di Marcin Wasilewski (l'incisione risale al novembre 2023). Sei i brani, tutti del sassofonista di Cleveland tranne il primo, “Love in the Garden" di Zbigniew Seifert, leggendario violinista di Cracovia morto poco più che trentenne nell'ormai lontano 1979 lasciando in tutti un grande punto interrogativo in merito a ciò che avrebbe potuto fare e non gli è ...
Continue ReadingTomasz Stańko Quartet: September Night
by Alberto Bazzurro
Una musica sospesa, carica di pathos, magari sempre un po' uguale a se stessa (all'interno di questo album, che viene da lontano, essendo stato inciso addirittura nel 2004, ma più in generale nell'ultima produzione di Tomasz Stanko), ma in possesso di un potere seduttivo immutato, e peraltro con periodiche impennate (per esempio in “Euforila," ma anche in “Elegant Piece," e sono questi i momenti in cui si avvertono le maggiori similitudini con Enrico Rava, in certe strappate repentine, certi squarci ...
Continue ReadingTomasz Stanko Quartet: September Night
by Chris May
How sorely Tomasz Stańko is missed. When he passed in 2018, his career had spanned practically the entire lifetime of homegrown Polish jazz, kicking off approximately with the Dave Brubeck Quartet's seminal tour of Poland in 1958, three years after the ban on jazz had been lifted by the country's ruling Communist Party. For Stańko, aged 16, Brubeck's tour was a Damascene moment, as it was for a whole generation of Polish musicians. Stanko was still resident in Poland when ...
Continue ReadingTomasz Stańko: September Night
by Mike Jurkovic
Once one finds oneself sucked into the fervent undertow piloting the live, previously unreleased September Night it is too late: The boat has left shore. Beginning with bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz's full throated rumble, “Hermento's Mood" spins off into fable somewhere around the one minute forty mark, when pianist Marcin Wasilewski begins his warm, welcoming symmetries and the band gathers steam.. Polish trumpeter/composer Tomasz Stańko (1942-2018) was a poet on his golden instrument. Metaphoric but never academic, ...
Continue ReadingMarcin Wasilewski Trio: En Attendant
by Chris May
The Marcin Wasilewski Trio's seventh ECM album traverses material by such disparate composers as J.S. Bach, Carla Bley and The Doors and brings it all together in a seamless package which also includes three spontaneously created group improvisations. It is a beauty. Pianist Marcin Wasilewski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz have been playing together for almost thirty years, first as the Simple Acoustic Trio, then as three-quarters of trumpeter Tomasz Stańko's Quartet, then under Wasilewski's ...
Continue ReadingMarcin Wasilewski Trio, Joe Lovano: Arctic Riff
by Thomas Fletcher
The Marcin Wasilewski Trio is amongst the most evident and high-profile jazz groups that roam the Polish scene. Celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary playing together only last year, the ensemble is widely renowned for challenging the piano trio and broadening its sound. Having collaborated with luminary wind players such as Jan Garbarek, Arthur Blythe and John Surman, the trio have now set their aspirations on performing with fellow ECM giant, Joe Lovano. Lovano made his debut with the record label back ...
Continue ReadingMarcin Wasilewski Trio & Joe Lovano: Arctic Riff
by Mike Jurkovic
Like standing before a frozen lake as it becomes a palette for the morning sun, “Glimmer of Hope" ripens swiftly, deftly into an illuminating, direly-needed respite from the mourning that has besieged listeners. Ecstatically, it is just the preface to Arctic Riff's expansive beauty. As if conjured from mist, pianist Marcin Wasilewski's contented, yet curious rubato, ellipses through a few random tonalities, its sole purpose being to create an active space for his long trusted rhythm section--bassist Slawomir ...
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