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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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Dust Bunny at The 19th Summer Jazz Academy
by Marek J. Śmietański
A collection of photos from the Dust Bunny concert at Wytwórnia in Lodz on July 21, 2026 featuring Marta Warelis and Nasim López-Palacios Navarro. Other photo reports from the same festival: QuartSky at The 19th Summer Jazz Academy, The Young Mothers at the 19th Summer Jazz Academy, Robinson Khoury Quatuor Demi-Lune at the 19th Summer Jazz Academy, Äether at the 19th Summer Jazz Academy. Look for the rest soon... ...
Continue ReadingMarta Warelis, Marion Brown & Hypomaniac
by Maurice Hogue
Polish pianist Marta Warelis assembled a most eclectic group of musicians for a gig at Amsterdam's The Bimhuis in October 2024 (trumpet Ben LaMar Gay from Chicago, Dutch tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Ab Baars, Canadian tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Karen Ng, Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and drummer Frank Rosaly who's from Chicago but now making his home in Amsterdam). Warelis was fulfilling one of those Reflex commissions that The Bimhuis awards. The resulting music on Still Life With Lemons ...
Continue ReadingAda Rave & Marta Warelis: Peel/Mondo
by John Sharpe
On Peel/Mondo, two distinctive voices sport in adventurous communion. Polish pianist Marta Warelis and Argentinean saxophonist Ada Rave first met as part of the fertile Amsterdam scene. As a result, they know each other well, so the empathy and highly attuned responsiveness they display on these six collective inventions from a 2024 concert performance comes as little surprise. Rave's singular approach has graced outfits as diverse as the Kaja Draksler Octet, all-women supergroup Hearth and venerable Dutch punk ...
Continue ReadingThe Outskirts - Rempis/Flaten/Rosaly + Marta Warelis: Orbital
by Mark Corroto
The trio known as The Outskirts, comprised of saxophonist Dave Rempis, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and drummer Frank Rosaly, was formed during Flaten's three-year tenure in Chicago from 2005 to 2008. Since then, geography has scattered the group: Flaten moved on to Texas before returning to his native Norway, while Rosaly relocated to Amsterdam, where he has become deeply embedded in its creative music scene. During the trio's long hiatus, the three musicians continued to cross paths in other contexts, ...
Continue ReadingDave Douglas: Four Freedoms
by Glenn Astarita
Inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 “Four Freedoms" speech--articulating freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear--trumpeter Dave Douglas frames Four Freedoms as both political echo and musical proposition. Although the quartet is geographically dispersed--Marta Warelis, Nick Dunston and Joey Baron residing in Europe, Douglas based in New York--the album sounds anything but remote. Distance, instead, sharpens focus. What emerges is a newly formed working band whose cohesion rests on shared vocabulary and ...
Continue ReadingJohn 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 ...
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