Concert Schedule update - Forest Underground at Klub RE (14.09)

I'm excited to be going in a couple of hours to Wroclaw to see Wayne Shorter Quartet start the Jazztopad festival but Krakow citizens have their own special concert as well.

14.10 Forest Underground at Klub Re (Krakow)
15.10 Forest Underground at Powiekszenie (Warsaw)

Forest Underground is a duo made by Rob Mazurek (whom I hope needs no introduction but other "Underground" bands come to mind easily) and Kuba Suchar (Mikrokolektyw, among other projects, the duo with Artur Majewski on trumpet, published by Delmark label).

Tomorrow the duo is playin in Warsaw, Powiekszenie klub. Below you can see the video with Mikrokolektyw and Chicago Underground Duo. The combination of the two seems like a good idea doesn't it?

Joshua Abrams Natural Information Society at Klub Re (04.03)

Joshua Abrams is a possibly most known for his double bass skills but Natural Information Society is a project that is largely focused on the sound of guimbri - a sort of 3-stringed ethnic guitar instrument, most known from recordings of Mali folk music.

For a short polish tour, Joshua with Lisa Alvarado invited Artur Majewski and Kuba Suchar (known otherwise as Mikrokolektyw) to join in this musical journey

The music, driven by the melodic guimbri riff and infectious, incessant tribal drum pulse, danced joyfully with the delicate trumpet and hypnotic filling the space in the groove.

Whenever Kuba Suchar turned to his electronic kit, the band would took us upon a mystic journey, hypnotic and trascendental. A kind of music that frees the soul to orbit in space, regardless of time and space.

Natural Information Society's music felt organic and complete, peacefull and joyfull. A music of ancient wisdom one might say. Here's mine interpration of the band's name: music, traditionally passed through generations was a natural foundation of a society, its link to the past, present and future, its connection to the communal memory.

I hope you'll be able to catch the group for more beatifull music.

ps. You can see above a brilliant art cover for the album "Represencing" issued (LP exclusive) on Eremite Records. Alas, having no possibility to actually play an LP record as for now, I had to resist the temptation.


Joshua Abrams - guimbri, double bass
Lisa Alvarado - harmonium, gong
Artur Majewski - trumpet, cornet
Kuba Suchark - drums, electronics

Klub Re. Krakow. 03.04.2013

Mikrokolektyw with Malgorzata Haduch at Alchemia (Krakow Autumn Jazz; 29.10)

2nd set of the evening introduced a new element to Krakow Jazz Autumn Festival - dance. Małgorzata Haduch - responsible for the Free The Dance series is a dancer / improviser that for that particular occasion invited to Krakow the Mikrokolektyw a duo. The band, born from the Robotobibok, made a surprising entrance to the international jazz scene couple of years back that ended in their first cd "Revisit"being released by the Delmark label. 

I had a chance to listen to the interview that Peter Margasak from Chicago made with Artur and Kuba before the concert and part of the conversation was dedicated to the subject of introducing more open forms and purely improvised elements to the duo's music. Both on their own as a well as the effect of various collaborations and improvisational meetings. The evening in Alchemia was a  particular example of that as the improvisation would be a core of the concert yet the music would still be played exclusively by just the two musicians.

And so there were passages reminding of the melodic song-like forms introduced on the cd, with a sweet tone of the trumpet and hypnotic, slightly tribal drumming. Yet so much of the soundspace would be filled with mysterious, suspended noises and sounds, both electronic and acoustic, that would fill the air like the abstract series of dots and lines, surprising, slightly irrational, dark yet strangely inviting.

Malgorzata Haduch's dance is a theatre of gestures and postures and moves that both mirror as well as enhance the perception of the sound. Without trying to overdo it, her dance would reflect equally the flexible, agile nature of the sound as well as scattered and surprising, incidental nature of improvisation. The arte of dance would co-exist with the art of sound being both its interprations as well as an extension.

But I wouldn't want to try to think about all the possible relations and ways of perceptions that mixed arts could enter in. I'm not sure if the dance adds something to the music, or changes it, or completes it. For me it's simple - the evening was as much pleasure for the eyes as for the ears. 

Artur Majewski - trumpet, electronics
Kuba Suchar - drums
Malgorzata Haduch - dance

Alchemia. Krakow Autumn Jazz. 29.10.2012