Music and poetry try often to coexist and the results vary greatly in quality, to say the least, reasons for which are to be found in the very essence of poetry in which the words with regular meanings acquire musica non-verbal values of rhythm and timbre and cadence and melody. To the extent that any "music" seems really redundant. Still, I'd like to propose to you two albums where the two meet together in a way that creates a value, a quality on its own.
Tadeusz Gajcy - poet
Borus Szyc - voice
Adam Pierończyk - music (tenor and soprano saxophone, zoucra, flute, voice, synth, electronic effects, field recordings)
2009 Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego
Fonografika Distribution
Tadeusz Gajcy was a poet of the 1920s polish generation. The first ones to be born in the free country after the I World War. The ones that had to sacrifice their youth lives in the II World War. He was a soldier of the polish underground army that fighted for the Warsaw in the 1944. Died on 16.08.1944.
His poetry is brought to life by Borys Szyc, a young polish actor with deep, nice baritone voice and Adam Pierończyk whose shouldn't be unfamiliar to any serious jazz follower internationally (and if it is, you'll find enough info on the web to start). Gajcy's poetry is heavy with the intensity of war, religious allegories, and yet is so incredibly direct and gripping, so filled with the vital passion for life. Pierończyk's music can be dense and disturbingly dark (electronic noises, loops, as in "Schodząc [Descending] or "Wezawanie [The Calling]"), the eerie synh harmonizer in "Jestem, Tutaj [I'm Here]"), or fragile and sad and quite beautifull (accapella tenor sax in "Czarne Okna [Black Windows]"). While it's serves more as a background during the dramatic, theatrical readings of the text he's given plenty of space to extend the musical commentary, to re-interpret the words into sounds.
I must say the strenghth of Gajcy's poetry is frightening, there's something so incredibly powerfull about the words of a man who lived continuasly with the threat of immediate death as somewhat of an obvious fact, which had to internally transformed into an intimate truth. And his poems are so much about the life, as if in this circumstances you had no other choise but to live, feel and experience with more dedication. What I can't really say is whether Pierończyk's music, to a non-polish listener, can stand on its own but I very much think so, he's dedication to the project, the emotional charge what he's done here is clearly perceived.
The project was coorganized by the Museum of Warsaw Uprising and, at the 58th anniversary of the Uprising, this release seems even more important. Not as a document of museum artifact but as affirmation of life, as proof that life can prevail death.
The one minus to the release is the lack of english translations and, until those are made available, any non-polish listeners is forced to follow blindly the sound of the words, which I still think should prove to be a worthwile experience, could actually prove to be even more intriguing and more powerfull one, just to feel the meaing by the sounds, music, melodies.
The date and time of this post is meant to be symbolic. On 01.08.1944 at exactly 17:00 the Uprising begun. To all those who, past and present, any place in this world fought for freedom - I salute you.
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