Results for "Krzysztof Komeda"

Krzysztof Komeda

Christopher Komeda's big time began back at the time of the I Sopot Jazz Festival in August 1956, but his ties with music were much older. Born in Poznan in 1931 he took piano lessons since his childhood and his first dreams were to be a famous virtuoso. They were no daydreams for at the age of eight he started at the Poznan conservatory. But the war upset his plans. During the war and later, until 1950 he continued to study the piano and theory but he was aware the six years were actually lost. Having graduated from secondary school he had to make up his mind as to his further studies. He wanted to have an exciting job and so he became an M

EABS: Discipline Of Sun Ra

By CHRIS MAY

Poland's future-jazz collective EABS brightened up summer 2020 with Erozje (Astigmatic), made by a breakout quartet going under the name Bloto. Those musicians—keyboardist Marek Pedziwiatr, saxophonist Olaf Wegier, electric bassist Pawel Stachowiak and drummer Marcin Rak--return to the mothership for Discipline Of Sun Ra, EABS' fifth studio album, on which they are joined by trumpeter Jakob ...

Komeda: A Private Life In Jazz

By IAN PATTERSON

Komeda: A Private Life In Jazz Magdalena Grzebałkowska 456 Pages ISBN: 978 1 78179 945 1 Equinox Publishing2020 That it has taken over fifty years for the first English-language biography of Krzysztof Komeda to appear reflects the pianist/composer's underground status outside his native Poland. Yet no history of European ...

Jazz & Film: An Alternative Top 20 Soundtrack Albums

By CHRIS MAY

Jazz and the movies have a shared history stretching back almost a hundred years. The relationship came into its own in the US in the mid twentieth century. Elia Kazan's 1950 movie Panic In The Streets is an early example of how film makers used jazz-based soundtracks to enhance drama and atmosphere and create ambiances of ...

Dark Side Trio: Industrial Song

By CHRIS MAY

The sophomore album from Kiev-based tenor saxophonist Danylo Vinarikov's Dark Side Trio is a tuneful, burnished affair which belies the rather forbidding name of the band, the seriosity of the album title and the dark satanic mills evoked by the sleeve art. The name of the band is also paradoxical, for the Dark Side Trio heard ...

Don Cherry: Cherry Jam

By KARL ACKERMANN

In the same year that composer/multi-instrumentalist Don Cherry recorded his milestone Complete Communion (Blue Note, 1966) he took his cornet to the studio of Danish National Radio. Cherry had established himself by the early 1960s, playing with Steve Lacy, Ornette Coleman, Paul Bley, John Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler and Ed Blackwell. Copenhagen began ...

New music from Wojtek Mazolewski

By BOB OSBORNE

On this show the featured release is the latest album by Wojtek Mazolewski Following the rhapsodic response to his debut Whirlwind release--a deluxe edition of Polka which, internationally, broke through into dance clubs and rock and indie festivals--the double bassist now focuses attention on the music of his compatriot Krzysztof Komeda (1931--1969), a legend ...

Piotr Damasiewicz & Power Of The Horns Ensemble: Polska

By CHRIS MAY

Poland's jazz tradition is perhaps the deepest rooted in all of Europe. Only Britain can rival it. But unlike British jazz, Polish jazz began in part as a declaration of protest against slavery and repression, as did that of its American parent, and this has given it a special quality. The slavery and repression were occasioned ...

Chris May's Best Releases of 2019

By CHRIS MAY

The world may be going to hell in a handcart, but the year has been full of uplifting jazz. Here are ten of the best albums--the first seven newly recorded, the final three reissued or recently unearthed. Each one is the coyote's cojones. Yazz Ahmed Polyhymnia Ropeadope The eagerly ...

Ruby Rushton: Ironside

By DON PHIPPS

Ruby Rushton's Ironside is like a trip back to the jazz of Dave Grusin's late 1980s film soundtrack The Fabulous Baker Boys. Hard driving bop, the music bubbles along with syncopated riffs and upbeat, energetic shuffles interlaced with soulful intervals. Woodwind player Edward Cawthorne penned six of the tunes, keyboardist Aidan Shepherd penned two ...