...this is Janczarski’s and Waggoner’s show, and in that respect the album is really quite marvelous. They never disappoint the listener.
Polish tenor saxophonist Borys Janczarski, who for some years co-led an excellent quintet with drummer Stephen McCraven, has since gone his own way with a quartet of which he is sole leader. This is their first release, Time Remembered, is available exclusively on Bandcamp.
Interestingly, the album was made three and a half years ago, in July 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic was scaring the bejesus out of anyone who gathered together—to make music or anything else. It’s a shame that it took so long for the recording to be released, but in a sense that is the price you pay nowadays when you play straight-ahead jazz. It seems like the whole jazz world has split into several factions, the most popular of which are the edgy-modern-free styles and the soft-ambient-mushy styles. Anything that harks back to bop or swing is generally marginalized.
Janczarski’s tone is without vibrato, like so many modern saxophonists, but his style of improvisation clearly harks back to Lester Young. It’s a great style, and I very much like the way he plays, but in our post-Coltrane, post-Arthur Blythe world, chaotic, screaming tenor saxophones rule the roosr, thus to many these performances will sound old-fashioned, no matter how well constructed they are.
And Janczarski is clearly on top of his game here. Just listen to the multiple choruses he spins out on the opener, “Beautiful Friendship," creating an entire developed composition over the chords of the original tune, Guitarist Mark Waggoner also plays several fine choruses very much in the same vein. Bassist Michal Jaros chugs along in the background; his playing is not particularly outstanding, but it is solid. My problem was with drummer Patryk Dobosz, who does not support the soloists so much as he goes all over the place with irrelevant cross-rhythms that actually detract from one’s enjoyment of the music rather than enhancing what the others are saying.
Although Dobosz is slightly more in synch with his group in “Lover Man," it is again the solos that grab one’s attention as well as Janczarski’s decision to take this tune in 6/8 time. Personally, I’ve never really liked this song, not even when Charlie Parker played it, and if Parker had not played it I don’t think that anyone else would have ever bothered with it. It’s a corny melody with very ordinary and uninteresting chord changes, but I have to admit that Waggoner so transforms it in his extended solo that I found myself completely caught up in what he made of it. In this case, it is the leader who follows on tenor rather than leading the guitarist. Janczarski plays very well, even throwing in a few screamed note on his instrument (rare for him), but it is only in his second chorus that he touches the high level set by Waggoner. By this time in the performance, Dobosz is again slapping the drums all over the place, leading the ear away from the beat rather than playing into it. His solo breaks are OK—there, he can do whatever he likes—but I really wish he had better taste in accompanying the other band members rather than trying constantly to grab attention away from them.
Surprisingly, Dobosz pulls back from his bashing-and-smashing style in the band’s performance of Bill Evans’ ballad, “Time Remembered." In fact, he sticks to playing brushes very softly, allowing not only Waggoner but also Jaros to be heard more clearly, and here the bassist’s contributions can be appreciated better. He even gets a solo, and although not on the level of Waggoner it’s a nice one. Dobosz does break up the time a little behind the leader’s solo, but not to the extent where he intrudes on the music’s flow.
“Lulu’s Back in Town" is a perfect example of what I am talking about. The tenor sax, guitar and bass all play a nice, relaxed, swinging beat that moves forward with all of them together on the same page, but Dobosz is apparently on a different page of a different book. Again, it’s not quite as annoying as in the first two tracks, but his rhythmic concept doesn’t match theirs and the result is another somewhat disjointed performance. (And here, even his solo is not particularly good, either.)
But this is Janczarski’s and Waggoner’s show, and in that respect the album is really quite marvelous. They never disappoint the listener; although Hoagy Carmichael’s lovely “Skylark" got off to a somewhat stodgy start before the solos, Janczarski’s solo on “Like Someone in Love" is so good it is almost a locus classicus of outstanding improvisation. Thus I recommend this recording for the solo contributions of the sax and guitar (and occasionally the bass), which are on as high a level as anything I’ve heard in the past two years.
~Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge
Interestingly, the album was made three and a half years ago, in July 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic was scaring the bejesus out of anyone who gathered together—to make music or anything else. It’s a shame that it took so long for the recording to be released, but in a sense that is the price you pay nowadays when you play straight-ahead jazz. It seems like the whole jazz world has split into several factions, the most popular of which are the edgy-modern-free styles and the soft-ambient-mushy styles. Anything that harks back to bop or swing is generally marginalized.
Janczarski’s tone is without vibrato, like so many modern saxophonists, but his style of improvisation clearly harks back to Lester Young. It’s a great style, and I very much like the way he plays, but in our post-Coltrane, post-Arthur Blythe world, chaotic, screaming tenor saxophones rule the roosr, thus to many these performances will sound old-fashioned, no matter how well constructed they are.
And Janczarski is clearly on top of his game here. Just listen to the multiple choruses he spins out on the opener, “Beautiful Friendship," creating an entire developed composition over the chords of the original tune, Guitarist Mark Waggoner also plays several fine choruses very much in the same vein. Bassist Michal Jaros chugs along in the background; his playing is not particularly outstanding, but it is solid. My problem was with drummer Patryk Dobosz, who does not support the soloists so much as he goes all over the place with irrelevant cross-rhythms that actually detract from one’s enjoyment of the music rather than enhancing what the others are saying.
Although Dobosz is slightly more in synch with his group in “Lover Man," it is again the solos that grab one’s attention as well as Janczarski’s decision to take this tune in 6/8 time. Personally, I’ve never really liked this song, not even when Charlie Parker played it, and if Parker had not played it I don’t think that anyone else would have ever bothered with it. It’s a corny melody with very ordinary and uninteresting chord changes, but I have to admit that Waggoner so transforms it in his extended solo that I found myself completely caught up in what he made of it. In this case, it is the leader who follows on tenor rather than leading the guitarist. Janczarski plays very well, even throwing in a few screamed note on his instrument (rare for him), but it is only in his second chorus that he touches the high level set by Waggoner. By this time in the performance, Dobosz is again slapping the drums all over the place, leading the ear away from the beat rather than playing into it. His solo breaks are OK—there, he can do whatever he likes—but I really wish he had better taste in accompanying the other band members rather than trying constantly to grab attention away from them.
Surprisingly, Dobosz pulls back from his bashing-and-smashing style in the band’s performance of Bill Evans’ ballad, “Time Remembered." In fact, he sticks to playing brushes very softly, allowing not only Waggoner but also Jaros to be heard more clearly, and here the bassist’s contributions can be appreciated better. He even gets a solo, and although not on the level of Waggoner it’s a nice one. Dobosz does break up the time a little behind the leader’s solo, but not to the extent where he intrudes on the music’s flow.
“Lulu’s Back in Town" is a perfect example of what I am talking about. The tenor sax, guitar and bass all play a nice, relaxed, swinging beat that moves forward with all of them together on the same page, but Dobosz is apparently on a different page of a different book. Again, it’s not quite as annoying as in the first two tracks, but his rhythmic concept doesn’t match theirs and the result is another somewhat disjointed performance. (And here, even his solo is not particularly good, either.)
But this is Janczarski’s and Waggoner’s show, and in that respect the album is really quite marvelous. They never disappoint the listener; although Hoagy Carmichael’s lovely “Skylark" got off to a somewhat stodgy start before the solos, Janczarski’s solo on “Like Someone in Love" is so good it is almost a locus classicus of outstanding improvisation. Thus I recommend this recording for the solo contributions of the sax and guitar (and occasionally the bass), which are on as high a level as anything I’ve heard in the past two years.
~Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge
