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Marta Warelis
Pianist Marta Warelis (1986) is a vibrant performer with a strong preference for improvisation and experimentation in all genres. She continually aims for instant composing on the basis of new sounds and influences. Her work draws inspiration from music across the globe including cumbia, Angolan dance music, as well as jazz, western classical music and the various schools of free improvisation. Born and raised in Poland where she graduated with honours from WSJiMR in Wroclaw, Marta moved to Groningen in 2010 to attend the Prins Claus Conservatory. In 2014 she found her place in Amsterdam, very quickly becoming an active member of the local improvisers’ scene. Marta has appeared frequently in the Bimhuis, where in 2017 she was given a Carte Blanche in recognition of her remarkable talents
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John Dikeman: Old Adam On Turtle Island
by John Sharpe
Committed improviser John Dikeman assembles a crack Amsterdam domiciled quartet to navigate Old Adam On Turtle Island, a song cycle that probes the intersections of colonization, religion, and their potential to inspire transcendence or tyranny. The framework is deliberately loose: a schematic more than a score, allowing the musicians to chart the course collectively. Themes emerge as insistent phrases rather than fixed melodies, serving as touchstones in a performance defined by ebb and flow. The first half moves ...
Continue ReadingAbdou - Gouband - Warelis: Hammer, Roll and Leaf
by John Sharpe
The multinational threesome of French saxophonist Sakina Abdou, French percussionist Toma Gouband and Polish pianist Marta Warelis establishes a striking group identity on Hammer Roll Leaf. From the opening track, “Roll," the trio's compositional instincts and collective discipline distinguish them from the crowded field of free improvisers. Warelis begins with cascading piano figures--robust, resonant and allowed to decay into silence. Abdou eventually enters, their alto saxophone lines darting and entwining with Warelis' lyric remnants, until they develop a dashing forward ...
Continue ReadingDikeman / Hong / Lumley / Warelis: Old Adam On Turtle Island
by Mark Corroto
The creative community centered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, can be seen as the modern-day equivalent of a city once known as New Amsterdam--a 17th-century Dutch settlement that would eventually become New York City. Just as modern jazz flourished in mid-20th-century New York, some might argue that today's hotbed of creative music resides in old Amsterdam. Evidence for this can be found in Old Adam on Turtle Island, a stunning musical creation by a multicultural quartet. Led by American saxophonist ...
Continue ReadingKlein / Rosaly / Warelis: Tendresse
by John Sharpe
Tendresse unites three talented improvisers residing in the cosmopolitan melting pot of Amsterdam in a low key frenzy of deep listening and inspired response. German reedman Tobias Klein has been an inhabitant in the Dutch city for over thirty years, while Polish pianist Marta Warelis and American drummer Frank Rosaly are more recent transplants. However, whatever their geographical origin they clearly share a taste for off-the-map excursions that build impact through the accumulation of small finely-judged details. ...
Continue ReadingPedro Melo Alves: Conundrum Vol. 1 - Itself Through Disappearance
by Mark Corroto
Great rock drummers are often ignored. One never pays attention to them during a performance because they are excellent, like Rolling Stones stalwart {Charlie Watts. If, however, they are not up to scratch, one definitely will notice. The same and more so can be said for jazz and improvising drummers. Talent, imagination and creativity are at a premium in this domain. Pedro Melo Alves is an excellent example of what an inventive and expressive drummer can be. Alves can be ...
Continue ReadingOmawi: Marta Warelis / Onno Govaert / Wilbert De Joode: Waive
by John Sharpe
The familiar made remarkable by unfamiliar surroundings. That is the gist of Andy Moor's cover photo for Waive which shows a sun lounging woman apparently about to be engulfed by an enormous wave. It is also a suitable summary of what Omawi, the combined talents of Amsterdam- based Polish pianist Marta Warelis, and the Dutch pairing of drummer Onno Govaert and bassist Wilbert De Joode, deliver on Waive, the third album from a unit which cultivates a collective ethos.
Continue ReadingDave Douglas: Secular Psalms
by Jerome Wilson
Trumpeter Dave Douglas has worked with religious themes in the past, notably on Be Still, (Greenleaf Music, 2012), and he gets back into that realm on this wide-ranging 2022 album. The music is a suite commissioned by the city of Ghent, Belgium to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the creation of an altarpiece for its St. Bavo's Cathedral. For this occasion Douglas assembled a group of young European musicians along with cellist Tomeka Reid who, because of the pandemic, had ...
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