It's been a long vacation from the blog. I've bitten and heavily by the vinyl bug and recently all the free time I can get is spend with the (occasionally crackling) sound of the dark matter circling on the turntable.
I can't get enough of Duke Ellington's Orchestra, of the round and warm sounds of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, of the trumpet high flyers Roy Eldridge, Charlie Shavers, Dizzy. Heck I even loved me some classic fusion. Add to that Ray Charles, some classic rock (polish band SBB and Niemen!) polish jazz series (Stanko, Komeda, Namyslowski!). It's not any news, but I love music.
I'm planning on restoring more regular activity although possibly a formula will change a bit (no details yet to specify). For the nearest future the main topic will be yet another edition of Krakow Autumn Jazz Festival - probably the only polish festival so clearly dedicated to the avant/free/improvised face of modern jazz.
I'll get to the whole schedule soon but for now you need to know that the festival is starting this Sunday with an open-air concert of The EX and Brass Unbound.
I didn't get to cover any of the recent big events in Krakow (particularly Sacrum Profanum festival) but bear in mind also another musical series that start today - Festival of Film Music will propose to you orchestra performance of the music from Gladiator, scores from video-games and much more.
The more avant-guarde projects of the festival are AlterFMF series in Malopolska Art Garden among which:
25.09. Europa Train Score
a multimedia performance with a large group of musicians among which well known jazzmen Adam Pieronczy, Marcin Oles, krakow-based improviser Michal Dymny, improvising rock-drummer Jakub Rutkowski and many more.
27.09 Trzaska plays Smarzowski
Mikolaj Trzaska needs no introduction to this blog's readers - he'll perform the music he composed to Wojtek Smarzowski - but make no mistake, these are no background melodies but compositions filled with guts.
27.09 Also of interest and more on the ambitious electronica side is a Saturday One Louder mini-fest with Thaw, Stara Rzeka (Old River), X-Navi:ET amd Artur Rominski at Alchemia
28.09 The EX & Brass Unbound on Plac Nowy (KRAKOW AUTUMN JAZZ BEGINS)
An exciting ensemble The EX with the energetic horn section of the best of the best in screaming jazz Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark and Roy Paci. A smash evening guranteed.