Jazzpospolita

JAZZPOSPOLITA

The new album from Jazzpospolita titled ‘Jazzpo!’ has been released on October 20th 2014. As usually, Jazzpospolita started a long promotional tour that has a beginning but so far, has no end…

Five years into their career, Jazzpospolita has become one of the most interesting phenomena in alternative music. So far, they have released four albums and played about 150 gigs all around Europe. With the band’s line-up unchanged from the beginning – guitar, bass, keys, drums – they have established their own and distinguishable sound. The strength of Jazzpo, as called by fans, lies in the unique compositions that place the band on the edge of jazz, post-rock, and electronic music. Combination of jazz harmonies, overdriven guitars, and electronic sounds enabled the band to attract a widely varied audience as well as to perform at jazz clubs and major popular festivals.

Debut EP (2009) Wojtek Oleksiak (drums) and Stefan Nowakowski (bass) founded the band in 2008. At that time, they decided to move on from jamming and clubbing and started a regular band. Michał Załęski (piano, keys) and Michał Przerwa-Tetmajer (guitar) joined the group in early 2009 – in this line-up, they released their first EP. Enthusiastic reviews and listener’s acclaim resulted in more than a dozen gigs that earned Jazzpospolita a status of one of the most interesting new bands with no album released.

Almost Splendid (2010) Soon after the first tour, musicians signed the contract with Ampersand/Isound Labels. The label, one of the leaders of alternative/nu-jazz/indie niche, is responsible for Polish distribution of artists such as: The Cinematic Orchestra, Jaga Jazzist, Bonobo, Tortoise, or Mogwai. Jazzpospolita’s first album Almost Splendid was released in 2010 and proved to be one of the best acclaimed Polish debut albums of last years with its first edition sold out before the end of the tour. A review in major Polish daily, ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’, claimed the album to be: “(…) a great thing for nu-jazz fans and those who search for more ambitious alternative rock.”

Impulse (2012) The second album titled Impulse revealed much more improvised side of Jazzpospolita, exceedingly-lively and psychedelic. The idea was to reflect the live concert’s atmosphere on a studio recording. Despite the aesthetic change in their music, the album met with a great support from fans and critics. ‘Polityka’ weekly wrote of it: “[their music is] intensive, uncommon, full of imagination, and free from routine.” Until 2012 the band was on tour almost non-stop. Jazzpospolita played concerts in Poland (for example supporting Bonobo Live Band Polish Tour), UK, Denmark, Belgium, Romania, Czech Republic, Russia or Bulgaria, on festivals such as: Heineken Open’er Festival, London Jazz Festival, Match & Fuse, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, and Comblain La Tour Jazz Festival. Polish Radio Channel no. 3 named Jazzpospolita a “concert discovery of the year 2011.” Finally Jazzpo’s concert on Męskie Granie (the biggest Polish rock’n’roll tour featuring top bands) brought an audience of 10,000.

RePolished Jazz (2012) From the very beginning Jazzpospolita was keen on experiments with electronic music. After intensive 2012 tour, the band released their third album RePolished Jazz in a rare format of double EP. Side A includes six remixes, while side B is a re-edition of the very first EP from 2009. In the field of collaboration with electronic music producers, working with the duet Bueno Bros turned out to be the most successful, having brought a couple of remixes as well as live project Jazzpo + Bueno. The band’s passion for good sounds as well as fans’ multiple requests, have led Jazzpospolita to release their full dicography on LPs in co- operation with an audiophile label Audiocave Records. Instrumental and hypnotic character of Jazzpospolita’s music has been eliciting the associations with cinematography from the very beginning. The videos for Laszlo and Cousins and Czerwona Flaga (ale ja się kąpię) reflect the band’s imagery and cinematic inspirations. In 2011, Jazzpospolita was awarded by the audience for the best music composed and played live to a silent film at 9th Silent Film Festival in Warsaw.

Jazzpo! (2014) It took them 1,5 year to prepare and record Jazzpo!. Right after coming back from Impulse Tour in late 2012 (over 50 shows all around Europe) Jazzpospolita members decided to lock themselves up in their studio and prepare compositions that will summarise their three previous albums, but at the same time, surprise the audience with freshness and incorporate Jazzpospolita’s newest inspirations. This is how 11 brand new original pieces came about and were recorded 100% live in a renowned studio. No editing was ever made; all the compositions sound just the way they were played during the session. Show less