Waclaw Zimpel Quartet - Stone Fog [For Tune]

Waclaw Zimpel - clarinets
Krzysztof Dys - piano
Christian Ramond - double bass
Klaus Kugel - drums






For Tune 2013

Waclaw Zimpel has appeared on this blog a handful of times already (most recently with the Hera XL "Seven Lines"), the fact, in my ears remain very simple - every single project Zimpel dedicates himself to is an artistic success, there's a vision behind every single one of them, a specific between preparation and spontaneity, between passion and thought, and the results continue to be spot on. 

Undivided with Perry Robinson - Moves Between Clouds (Live in Warsaw) [Multikulti]

Undivided:
Bobby Few - piano
Mark Tokar - double bass
Perry Robinson - clarinet
Klaus Kugel - drums
Waclaw Zimpel - bass clarinet, clarinet, tarogato

Multikulti 2011

After the appraised debut "Passion" Waclaw Zimpel's Undivided band comes back with a new material and I feel honored and gratefull I had a chance to see the band perform it on stage during this year Tzadik festival - an event which was also this cd's release date. I feel what I wrote then about concert still applies to the music on the cd so let me just be brief while I invite you to get back to that old post.

Vth Tzadik Poznan Festival day 1 - Undivided with Perry Robinson / Mikolaj Trzaska

As the weekend seems now to be long gone I'll try to remember and summarize quickly in the next few posts the musical events of the Vth Tzadik Poznan Festival. Many thanks to Tomasz Konwent and Wawrzyn Makina from Multikulti and all the others whose hard work and dedication made this festival possible.

Ksawery Wójciński / Klaus Kugel / Paweł Postaremczak Trio at Bomba (30.06)

photo from the concert in Performer club at
 Żyrardów (1.07) by Pawel Owczarczyk

Bomba continues it glorious quest in giving young musicians an opportunity and space to play in front of the Krakow's audience - and no matter how unconventional and provisory this space is, this continous effort deserves a big round of applause.

Both Ksawery Wojcinski and Pawel Postareczak are playing in the Hera quartet and, stunned with Waclaw Zimpel's leadership, I feel I underestimated their contributions to the groups first release (self-titled "Hera" cd) while both players impressed me immensely on stage during the Lublin Jazz Festival, especially Ksawery Wojcinski who became my personal hero of the day. Klaus Kugel, I can only guess got introduced to them thanks to his playing with Waclaw Zimpel's Undivided, played already with Ksawery on a great "Nuntium" cd released this year by Multikulti (I plan to get back to write more about it soon).

The trio starts with a slow, pensieve tune, slowly exploring its melodical variations, getting more intense, spiritual, building the dramatic tension with low vibrating cries of the tenor, tearing the bass strings and storming through the drum kit, full of passion, a musical battle or exorcism that suddenly ends with a gentle coda.

Kugel's style of playing is very unique in a way he manages to balance a very powerfull and heavy attack on the kit with melodic sensibility and attention to details. He's like the weather shaman, quite capable of bringing a cooling breeze or a gentle rain but thriving bringing down a furious storm & thunders, his ability to sustain those culminations is uncanny.  Pawel Postaremczak instruments choice indicates Coltrane as a strong influence and his playing strives for emotional intensity that characterized Trane but he chooses rather to stay in the middle register of the horn, digging deep into the melodic possibilites of the theme rather than expanding the harmony through running scales, and when goes into the altissimo it makes it even more dramatic and powerfull.

The second piece starts with a delicate legato solo on the bass, that creates a stable motiv with the high notes, accented subtly by the mallets, bells and bowed plates, creating an oniric atmosphere to build on. To uplift the mood, stretch the dynamics, create a dramatic tension. Ksawery, who only consolidates the impression he made in Lublin, plays a great solo, rhythmically driven, plucking energetically the strings while mantaining the both the groove and the melody, moving his body unconsciously and it's absolutely inspiring to see how completely immersed in the moment he is, how committed he is to the music - his passion is almost palpable and his energy contagious. His deep woody tone and his earthy rhythm and energy-oriented playing reminds of William Parker and of Joe Fonda.  After Wojcinski's solo the band continous to create another story - with Postaremczak taking on the soprano, adding a brighter tone and more knotty lines while mantaining the energy level. The last piece is more peacefull, starts like a meditative chant, slowly burning inside.

A great concert and the clear passion and fire makes up for the audio flaws (with a space this little it was easy to predict that Kugel's drumming may be overpowering every now and then). The performance was registered with mobile recorders and I hope the tour they're playing the next few days will give enough high quality material (as far as the audio goes, I don't have any doubts about the music's quality) to create their debut cd.

Ksawery Wojcinski - double bass
Klaus Kugel - drums and percussion
Pawel Postaremczak - tenor and soprano saxophone

klub Bomba. Krakow. 30.06.2011

something to listen today. Passion in jazz part II. Undivided - The Passion [Multikulti]

I've just read an interesting short article about modern takes on "Passion" musical 'genre' that seemed long-gone until Krzysztof Penderecki brought it up again the middle of the last century. Passion of Jesus Christ became a subject of modern readings that would often omit entirely the religious message and search for more modern and alternatives readings - like "Jesus Christ Superstar", like controversial "Last Temptation of the Christ", but could also go way back before the time of Bach into the contemplative aura of medieval harmonies as in Arvo Part's "Passio".

(polish readers can find the article here, others can use the link to follow the youtube clips it proposes.)

So I thought about writing a short note about two jazz cds that fit well into this subject (both of them were played during the last radio program too).

The Passion

Undivided:

Waclaw Zimpel - bass clarinet, clarinet, tarogat

Bobby Few - piano

Mark Tokar - double bass

Klaus Kugel - drums

Multikulti 2010

This cd got some decent exposure, winning the Happy New Ears poll on well-known Stef's blog. Fact is that it may be one of the most ambitious projects in jazz music for quite a while. Waclaw Zimpel composed "Passion" as a collage of vocal and instrumental themes from the subject's musical history, adding his own parts to it and glueing  and expanding thus created rhetorics with improvisation in an effort to create a musical and universal reflection about pain and sorrow, as described in biblical Passion of the Jesus Christ.

André / Tokar / Kugel - VARPAI [Nemu Records]

VARPAI
André Pabarciute - voice
Mark Tokar - double bass
Klaus Kugel - percussions


Nemu Records 2010

I grabbed this one after the Zimpel/Tokar/Kugel/Kusiolek concert during the Silent Movie Festival. And definitely find no reason to regret this decision, even if I'm not such a big fan of vocals in improvised music. 

This is musical journey into the centre of the earth. Peaceful, meditative, with lots of extended techniques, little 'melody' but all sound, very organic and natural. Stripping the instruments (including the voice) of all expected notions of how it "should" be used. The silence and the resonance of the long-gone sounds are here as important as the sounds themselves.

Zimpel/Tokar/Kugel/Kusiolek ; Contemporary Noise Quintet - Silent Movie Festival 04.12

Had a chance to see a couple of movies during 12th edition of Silent Movie Festival in Krakow, a real treat. To see something as old fashioned as a silent movie with music so modern played live in the background is a quite unreal and special experience each time.

First at Kino Pod Baranami we watched Storm over Asia (1929) (this blog is not dedicated to cinema, so no real details here, check the links to imdb). Anyway the storyline is quite dramatic, with a couple of dynamic twists and great pictures presented (steppes of Mongolia are quite daunting). The music played by quartet is likewise dramatic, slowly building tension, fortunately not giving in into any easy world music suggestions given by the moving picture, but very much following the eerie and tense mood of the story, lot of sounds hanging in the air, great gong playing, lot of bows on plates and generally very delicate and suggestive playing by Klaus Kugel. Robert Kusiolek on accordion, who was completely unknown to me so far, creates some great, dark lines and the sound of the instrument contributes well to the climate of the movie. Mark Tokar and Waclaw Zimpel are in their usual fine form too. The music is quite cohesive, and, although sounds completely improvised, very structured, obviously thanks to very specific inspiration, with no real soloing going on, rather some moods flowing in and out, finding the balance between timbre and sound, and some long-forgotten, distant melodies, underlining the picture, enhancing it. Never mirroring the picture but following it very closely, and giving it more emotional strength (Some of the pieces from Zimpel's The Light trio 'Affects' release could be a good example of what I mean).

Then the audience moves to Manghha (in a festival bus) for Contemporary Noise Sextet (downsized to Quintet this evening) to see Piccadily (also 1929). This one could be very much considered pioneer noir move, with lot of seduction, dark passion and jealousy going on on the screen, also very modern. Again the band could choose the easy way and try to emulate the music of the era (lot of dancing on the screen, "Piccadily" is the name of the music club in London), but they choose to rather work on the mood and tension created by the stroyline. With some dense, rhythmically disturbed, only apparently smooth, grooves (great playing by Kuba Kapsa on drums, lot of drum'n'bass like fast brakes). Even the more laid back tunes have some dark tones to them and the whole time music kind of prophets the dramatic finale of the movie, pushing it forward, changing the perception of the scene sometimes, giving it more tense edge. While the playing itself was surely not entirely my cup of tea, it fit the movie very well, with a great downtown line opening and closing the spectacle, a portrait of big city - London, the city that never sleeps. As all of the big cities in this world.

This was extremely busy weekend (check the previous and the next post to verify) but Silent Movie Festival is something quite unique, bringing together art of the past and the present in a way that creates a very surreal experience. The music obviously shouldn't be judged by the usual standards, both bands playing servant role to the picture, both finding a very own way to comment on the picture and succeding in doing so. Whenever You have an opportunity to see this kind of event, take it, or wait for the next year in Krakow.