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| FOUR SURE - OUT TODAY A surprising album that is relesead in this challenging year, perhaps not by chance: Roscoe Mitchell meets Mazzoll & Arthythmic Perfection one of the most important band of the Polish Jazz scene since 80s, a period of radical changes, especially in Eastern Europe, just before and after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. This album has been released at the end of this year where major transformations and changes due to pandemic are needed. Tomorrow the world will not be like, and it cannot be the same as yesterday. And this album is one of the signs of the necessary transformation to come, a transformation which is already happening. FOR SURE is a cd that has a long history behind it. It is definetly, for sure, the result of the mutual will and stubbornness of the Polish double bass player Sławek Janicki and the Art Ensemble of Chicago founder Roscoe Mitchell to give life to this album conceived in the early 90s, in an era of great socio-political transformations, after a contact between the polish band with Art Ensemble of Chicago. It is a meeting between different cultures and between different generations that contaminate each other, influence each other and exchange energy and desire for experimentation and research of new languages. THE FULL STORY The fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism and the rise of Solidarity ushered in a wave of social and political changes in Poland. At the beginning of the 1990s this social upheaval sparked a new musical movement called the "Yass Scene" (https://culture.pl/en/article/yass-the-jazz-the-filth-and-the-fury) A group of people from Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz, who, as befits twentysomething-year-olds, broke the rules. Breaking boundaries and establishing a new musical vocabulary. They listened to punk rock, The Beatles, Mozart, but also Coltrane, Davis, Eric Dolphy, Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, the late Krzysztof Komeda, and Bogusław Schaeffer. They've heard about John Cage and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. They wanted to create their own art and their own music that would contain the expression and truthfulness of the artists they learned from, but would be their own, the energy of punk combined with the sensibility of jazz, unique. One of the bands that emerged at that time was Miłość, which in 1994 recorded a live album with Lester Bowie. Another album, which they have recorded (the last Lester's album) was "Talkin' About Life & Death". At the same time, the band Mazzoll & Arthythmic Perfection was already active, playing almost every day in the newly established club Mózg, operating in Bydgoszcz to this day. The band consisted of: clarinet player Jerzy Mazzoll, trumpeter Janusz Zdunek, double bass player Sławek Janicki, percussionist Jacek Majewski and drummer Tomasz Gwinciński. In 1994, the band recorded the album "Out Out to Lunch". This album was sent to the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago with a proposal of cooperation. The answer came by fax, "let's record an album together". However, it was not easy logistically, some 10 years later the project was withering on the vine, "spread over the bones" as the Polish saying goes. One day Slawek Janicki met Roscoe Mitchell in Poznań, Roscoe greeted him with the words, "when are we recording this album?" Some more time had to pass for the plans to be implemented. Arhythmic Perfection lost one musician; the AEOC team lost a few. In 2015, the founders of both bands: Roscoe Mitchell and Jerzy Mazzoll, bassist of Arhythmic Perfection Sławek Janicki and his son Qba, who from birth listened to music created by the entire milieu of artists performing at the Mózg club, met on stage twice. The concerts took place as part of the 11th Mózg festival in Warsaw and Bydgoszcz and the latter is documented on the album FOUR SURE. BIOS Roscoe Mitchell Sławek Janicki Sławek Janicki is a musician, filmmaker and curator of artistic activity. He is the co-creator and main director of the legendary Mózg club founded in 1994 in Bydgoszcz. Over the period betweeb 2014 and 2018 he also directed the club's branch in Warsaw. His is the creator and director of the International Contemporary Festival of Music and Visual Arts MÓZG Festival that takes place in Bydgoszcz and Warsaw. He also created another special project called SuperSam+1 as well as many other bigger or smaller art events. He started his artistic activity in mid 80's. For almost 30 years he has been active on the international improvised music scene. He has played many concerts in Europe and Australia. As a musician he is entirely devoted to absolute improvisation as it is the purest form of creating music. Janicki has been playing and recording with good number of musicians: Roscoe Mitchell, Peter Brotzmann, Mark Feldmann, Kazuchisa Uchihaschi, Sainkho Namtchylak, Fred Frith, Sylvie Courvoisier, Toshinori Kondo, Nicola Hein, Nina de Heney, David Moss, Jerzy Mazzoll, Qba Janicki, Piotr Grygor, Krzysztof Freeze Ostrowski. Jerzy Mazzol Jerzy Mazzol is known as one of the most interesting clarinettists in Poland. Playing, he combines elements of classical and contemporary music. He created his own unique playing techniques. He performed with many renowned artists, such as: Django Bates, Alfred Harth, Evan Parker, Jeffrey Morgan, Vytautas Labutis, Niels Landgren, Roscoe Mitchell. He created music for avant-garde films and installations (Bolero, Point City, Midnight Shakespeare), which were made in Poland, Netherlands and Germany. He also made music for a film directed by J. Maruszewski "jutro będzie niebo as well as a documentary "Słowa jak ściany". Together with R. Knuth he created a scenic form called diffusion as part of Diffusion Ensemble project, where he participated in shows alongside artists such as Harald Naegeli, Jenny Holzer or Felix Droese. Qba Janicki Qba Janicki – born 6th February 1989 in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Currently living in Sokołowsko. Growing out of the artistic society gathered around famous club MÓZG. Over last 15 years he performed hundreds of concerts, during which he performed with such personalities as Jerzy Mazzoll, Sławek Janicki, Roscoe Mitchell, Tomasz Sroczyński, Toshinori Kondo, Peter Brotzmann, Kris Wanders or Fred Frith. Currently he works solo and in such formations as Malediwy with Marek Pospieszalski, Kondensator Przepływu with Bartłomiej Chmara, Wojtek Mazolewski Quintet as well as in duos with composer Teoniki Rożynek and belgian producer Obsequies. Besides playing instruments, he also composes music for theatre working with Maciej Podstawny, Paweł Łysak, Artur Pałyga and Grzegorz Jaremko. He also made his appearance on the hiphop stage, producing an album HORE by a legendary raper VIENIO of one of the first polish hiphop groups MOLESTA. In addition, as a co-creator of MÓZG FOUNDATION, he works on organizing cultural events in Bydgoszcz and Warsaw. Since the beginning of 2020 he is also running his own radio show "LAYERS" for Radio Kapitał. write your comments about the article :: © 2020 Jazz News :: home page |