Tomasz Stańko - Wolność W Sierpniu - Freedom In August (2005)

POLIN (see links below) wasn't the first time that the late Tomasz Stańko had composed for the opening of a Polish museum.  The 27 minutes of music on this release were written for the Warsaw Uprising Museum's opening in 2004, which marked the 60th anniversary of the wartime event in question.

Quite unlike the POLIN release, which was effectively a conventional jazz album in its own right, Freedom In August is a much more soundtrack-like work.  Stańko's working group of the time are expanded with keyboards and percussion (Janusz Skowron and Apostolis Antymos, both of whom he'd worked with in the 80s) and backing from the Polish Symphony Orchestra.

This lush, widescreen sound can seem a little odd at first coming from someone like Stańko, but it works well in this context, and emphasises his melancholy forte as a composer.  Of course, as he still stars on trumpet on every track, Freedom In August is also well worth a listen for any fans of Stańko's signature sound.  He stretches out most on the plaintive, urgent Crash Song, and graces every other track with the charcoal streaks familiar to his conventional records.  A really beautiful mini-album that deservies recognition in the much-missed Stańko's catalogue.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Jazzmessage From Poland
Purple Sun
Freelectronic in Montreux
Bluish
Bosonossa And Other Ballads
Matka Joanna
Dark Eyes
Wisława
Polin

Roman Maciejewski - Requiem Missa Pro Defunctis (rec. 1989)

Roman Maciejewski (1910-1998), although born in Berlin and resident for much of his later life in Sweden, was a lesser-known Polish composer.  So in an attempt to make him a little less lesser-known over this Easter weekend, here's his most major work, a post-war requiem mass.  The album cover, only used for this original double-CD edition, is fitting: it's that famously haunting image of the shelling of the Prudential building during the Warsaw Uprising, August 1944.

The second world war added a graveness to Maciejewski's character and outlook, leading to solemn and dignified music like this.  The Requiem was worked on from 1945 and finally finished in 1959, by which time it could be seen as a precedent to some of Arvo Pärt's later choral/orchestral work.  There's a lot of ostinato repetition that gives the work a gently melancholic, meditative and hypnotic effect, especially in its early sections.  This can then feel a little overpowered by the sheer size (it's longer than everything else) and weightiness of the Dies Irae section that Maciejewski ends with, but there's a nice Stravinsky influence here and there, and it's work sticking with to appreciate its power.

Disc 1 link
Disc 2 link
pw: sgtg 

Tomasz Stańko - Bosonossa And Other Ballads (1993)

YEEESSSS finally got hold of a copy of this!  Majorly out of print (seeming to have disappeared from the GOWI label's catalogue on their own website), Bosonossa is well worth chasing down.  Stańko's quartet with which he'd return to ECM the following year (on Matka Joanna - will post sometime) appear here fully-formed, and sound fantastic on this masterpiece of an album.

Six tracks in just shy of an hour means that everyone gets a chance to stretch out and showcase their considerable talents alongside Stańko.  Drummer Tony Oxley is particularly adept at sketching the atmospherics - I remember one reviewer of Matka Joanna likening him to 'a ghost dragging its chains around', and the same is true in places here.  ECM familiars Bobo Stenson and Anders Jormin contribute some stunning pianism and thick, meaty bass respectively, brilliantly rendered in a production job by Stańko himself.

As for the (sadly now late) trumpeter, he's on top form throughout, spitting out firecrackers of sound one moment then languidly breathing out the residual smoke trails the next.  His chosen material for Bosonossa is inspired as always - his 80s staple Sunia gets its most respectful and drawn-out treatment on record, and three of the other tracks he was rightly proud enough of to recast them in the initial phase of his ECM homecoming.  Fans of Matka Joanna and Leosia will therefore enjoy both a bit of familiarity, and also the sheer brilliance of these tracks in their original outings.  But to be honest, anyone who likes Stańko, or just great quartet jazz, is in for a treat here of the highest order.

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previously posted at SGTG:
Jazzmessage From Poland (1972)
Purple Sun (1973)
Freelectronic in Montreux (1987)
Bluish (1991)
Dark Eyes (2009)
Wisława (2013) 
Polin (2014) 

Czesław Niemen - Niemen Vol. 1 & 2 (1973)

Staying in 70s Poland for the moment, here's a couple of fascinating albums by the legendary singer, organist and songwriter Czesław Niemen (1939-2004).  Released at the height of a jazz fusion phase, Niemen Vol. 1 and Niemen Vol. 2 are actually regarded as a double-album released as two separate LPs - most subsequent reissues have them as one CD under the title Marionetki, but the one I managed to get hold of was on two CDs under the original titles.  Which is nice, but anyway, on to the music.

Since the late 60s, Niemen had been gaining popularity as a classical-influenced, progressive rock organist, and a strong, soulful singer.  Both are very much in evidence here, and the lyrics are settings of verse by Polish poets.  The language barrier unfortunately precludes me from enjoying the latter, but that doesn't matter much on Vol. 1, which is dominated by two lengthy instrumentals.

At 17 minutes, Requiem dla Van Gogha is the longest and most abstract - lots of atmospheric organ and scraping violin.  After a short, upbeat piano and fuzz-guitar based song (the guitarist is SBB's Apostolis Anthimos, who worked with Tomasz Stańko in the 80s), the 13-minute Inicjały brings back the organ, violin, has intermittent wordless vocalisations, and introduces lengthy trails of smeared trumpet.  The result of that is strongly reminiscent of 70s Miles Davis at his most open-ended - think He Loved Him Madly - and is probably my favourite thing here.

Vol. 2 has five tracks, all with vocals - even if the only Polish I can remember from my brief time there is 'dwa bilety prosze' for the bus stations, it's hard not to be moved by how great Niemen's voice was.  I've read comparisons to Joe Cocker, but he's not quite as gritty/bluesy as that to my ears.  Anyhow, we start with Marionetki, with doomy organ and drums for a few minutes, before setting off on another epic journey with Piosenka dla zmarłej and some enojyably knotty jazz-prog in the intro.  There's much more guitar on Vol. 2, and Anthimos' solo midway through this track is a good taste of what's to come.

Nine minutes of Z pierwszych ważniejszych odkryć are announced with some driving guitar, before Anthimos switches to a mellower slide for the verses.  Lots of good gear-changes follow, more fuzz lead and even some funky drumming - I think this track is my highlight of Vol. 2.  The minute-long oddity Ptaszek made me look up the lyrics and pop them into a translator just to find out what the manic laughter was about - it's a great absurd verse describing a crazy bird.  The writer, inter-war poet Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, certainly seems to have been a fascinating character.  Lastly, Niemen stretches those great pipes of his again for Com Uczynił, a powerful ballad with another fantastic jazz-funk middle section.

Disc 1
Disc 2

Arp Life - Jumbo Jet / Z Bezpieczną Szybkością (2014 compilation, rec. 1975-78)

In 1975, library music composer Mateusz Święcicki (1933-1985) teamed up with film soundtrack composer Andrzej Korzyński (b. 1940) to start off a studio ensemble for Polish Radio.  The name given to the project, which Święcicki had been using a couple of years earlier, was Arp Life: he'd liked how the Arp Odyssey synthesiser sounded much more refined compared to the rougher Minimoog.

For the next three years, additional musicians associated with the radio studios, most of their names lost to history, would come and go to add strings, brass or percussion as desired.  And ironically enough, Arp synths were scarcely, if ever, used - pretty much everything electronic here is either Fender Rhodes or Minimoog.  The best known artefact to emerge from this arrangement, and a mainstay of crate-digger blogs for as far back as I can remember, was the Jumbo Jet LP, released by Polskie Nagrania in 1977, and featuring new core member Maciej Śniegocki as writer and arranger.

Whether on a vinyl rip, or a remastered CD like this, the sampling appeal of Jumbo Jet is undeniable - wah-wah guitars, funky Rhodes and nifty bass & percussion riffs are everywhere, along with a handful of great fuzz guitar leads and melancholy disco strings.  Vocals are either wordless or limited to the track title; only the title track has more than that.  Only two tracks top the four minute mark - Jumbo Jet is basically a library LP par excellence, and a few tracks saw use in film, with Baby Bump and the gorgeous Hotel Victoria featuring in Andrezj Wajda's Man Of Marble.

original cassette cover, 1978

The following year, the Wifon label released a series of cassettes specifically promoted for in-car use, with the titles encouraging Poland's motorists to 'have a nice journey', 'don't dazzle [with your headlights, presumably]', and 'drive at a safe speed'.  That last one - in Polish, 'Z bezpieczną szybkością', was effectively Arp Life's second and last album.  Three tracks on the tape were taken from Jumbo Jet (Motor Rock was presumably a no-brainer to open the tape with), and the remaining ten were never released in any other format until this 2014 CD, which was followed by individual vinyl reissues.  The sound of these tracks is much the same as on Jumbo Jet, although Korzyński is the dominant writer rather than Śniegocki, leading to a bit more brass in the arrangements.  A couple of non-album singles and an unused signature jingle written for the Tonpress label round out this great compilation.

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