Raphael Roginski and Polish New Jewish Music part 2 - Shofar [Kilogram Records] and Sisters [Multikulti]

Shofar - Ha-Huncvot

Mikolaj Trzaska - alto saxophone, bass clarinet

Raphael Roginski - guitar

Macio Moretti - drums

 Kilogram Records 2013

That's the band it all begun with. "Shofar" (Kilogram Records 2007) was a deep dive into heritage that seemed to be completely lost at the moment. A journey to the past in order to understand's one identity and roots. It turned out that that music, it's feeling lives deep inside the three musicians and many others that followed on trying to explore the tradition of hasidic music with the contemporary context. (the topic appears few times in the interview with Mikolaj Trzaska)

Shofar - The North Ameriacan Tour

Mikolaj Trzaska is one of the main heroes of this blog. The Shofar trio with Trzaska, Roginski and Moretti goes on tour to USA. Check the press info and schedule to see if you can catch them. Don't miss out! 

The trio have just released their second cd, hopefully I'll be able to write more about it soon.

Instead of a radio playlist I link down the pre-release presentation of the album (available for only a couple of days more).

SHOFAR 
The North American Tour 

Thursday, February 21, 2013 - Sunday, March 3, 2013 

February 21, 2013, 7:30 pm
David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
New York City

February 23, 2013, 9 pm
Protest Series at Heaven Gallery
Chicago, IL

February 24, 2013, 10 pm
Hungry Brain
Chicago, IL

February 25, 2013, 7:30 pm
2013 Chutzpah! Festival
Vancouver, Canada

February 26, 2013, 7:30pm
The Royal Room
Seattle, WA

February 27, 2013, 9 pm 
bluewhale
Los Angeles, CA

March 2, 2013, 8 pm
28th Jewish Music Festival
Berkeley, CA
7 pm Pre-concert talk
with Ruth Ellen Gruber

March 3, 2013, 8 pm - 2 sets
Blue Monk
Portland, OR 

Shofar presents an improvisational twist on traditional Hasidic melodies, through the wild minds of three leading Polish musicians Raphael Roginski, Mikolaj Trzaska and Macio Moretti. The impulse to pursue this area of interest was a discovery of a collection of Hasidic songs by Moshe Beregovski (1892-1961) who, beginning in the 1920s, researched and wrote about Jewish music. The concept behind this project is to carry on the Jewish musical traditions, while also searching for a common denominator shared by Hasidic music and free jazz. 

The trio's repertoire includes nigunim, or religious songs meant to induce a state of religious ecstasy, freylakhs of a more dancelike nature, as well as pieces derived from Jewish liturgy. Unchanged in form, this material unlocks the whole broad spectrum of Hasidic music and culture. As composers and performers, Raphael Roginski has focussed on jazz-influenced improvisation and folk music; Mikolaj Trzaska explores new wave, free jazz, modern rock and poetry; and Macio Moretti covers grind/punk, twisted country and western, improv, psychedelic and pseudojazz.

Shofar concerts are presented by David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, Chutzpah! Festival, Jewish Music Festival in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute New York. Concerts in Berkeley co-presented with the Polish Cultural Institute New York and co-sponsored by the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture, in association with the Israel Center in San Francisco, the Consulate of Israel, and the Consulate of Poland in Los Angeles. Additional Shofar concerts are presented by Protest Series at Heaven Gallery, Hungry Brain, the Royal Room, Earshot Jazz, bluewhale and the Blue Monk in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute New York. Concert in Los Angeles is presented in collaboration with the KulturePlus Productions. 

Shofar - Ha - Huncvot (1 kg Records 2013) by Jazzariumpl on Mixcloud

Viktor Toth, Clayton Thomas, Macio Moretti at Barka (Krakow Autumn Jazz 2012; 25.10)

Clayton Thomas

Viktor Toth, Clayton Thomas and Macio Moretti have never nor player nor met before. Non entirely unusual situation on the improvised music scene - you play a tons of gis with guys you've never met before, possibly will never meet again, for better or worse. Representants of three different scenes and backgrounds (Budapest and free jazz, Berlin and radical free improv, Warsaw and indie rock) came together in Krakow for a special event that was born as an idea to be checked and presented on Krakow Autumn Jazz.

And as soon as they hit the first notes their different backgrouns are evident, Clayton Thomas plucks and slaps the strings with various objects, Viktor flows freely yet with a classic jazz feel through flying notes while Macio Moretti hits the punkish rhythm with a rock energy and punk attitude.

What's even more evident though is that those three meet together in the place and time to co-create an unique mixture of styles and influences that, while coloured with  all possible shades of the rainbow, mantains a surprsing cohesity, due to their egoless presence of mind and will to co-create and co-exist.

Viktor Toth

Each set has a short encore that's is a free jazz pleasure with fast bass walking, circus-mad fast hi-hat and breaknecking saxophone runs. The trio interchanges beetween heavy grooves and meditative, reflective melodies as well as searching, hipnotic ancient-like chants (Viktor, aside the saxophone plays a variety of wooden flutes).

There are moments of irresistible headbanging and laughter as well as those of enchanting, hypnotic beauty hidden but uncovered in the textural and timbral patterns, repetitive melodies (etheral sound of the string's aliquotes plucked gently with the fingetips of the mallets is something to behold).

Macio Moretti

The trio attracts the audience's attention both throuth the long and varied improvisation of the 1st set (plus the fast and furious free jazz ride short encore) as well as during the shorter, more coincise pieces in the 2nd one - a series of improvisation with a simple idea at the nucleon, a short phrase, a repetitive groove, a timbre or a a rhythm. And the syncronicity is picture perfect as they stop and go and play with the sudden breaks and broken rhythms and call and response like ebbs and flow till the point the only possible reaction is pure laughter (how often does music make you laugh with pure enjoyment?).

Improvising musicians meet with other improvising musicians to well .... improvise quite often (cause that's what they do) but I'd daresay that they rarely tick so quickly and so well both in rhythm and melody as did Viktor, Clayton and Macio yesterday. Which hopefully will make this event much more than just a "project" or a "collaboration" but will make this three a regular trio. For possible future enjoyment. 

Viktor Toth - alto sax, flutes
Clayton Thomas - double bass, objects
Macio Moretti - drums

Barka. Krakow Autumn Jazz 2012. 25.10.2012

ps. as there are no audio-visual materials available from the concert (for now), I invite you to have a listen to this playlist featuring fragment's of most recent cd by Viktor "Popping Bopping".

Mazolewski Bund Band and Jewish Surf at Cheder Cafe (02.12)

Just a quick post about a concert that took place last friday (I'm kind of busy with a new job but I hope to get back to more steady writing soon enough).  The concert took place in Cafe Cheder on Kazimierz, was a part of the MuLaKuŻ cycle (a musical laboratory of jewish culture), a double header for the special occasion which was a release of the cd compilation documenting the cycle.

Vth Tzadik Poznan Festival day 2 - Daktari / Jewish Surf

The 2nd day of the Tzadik Poznań Festival

1. Daktari

A young band that could easily fit into the New York 90's downtown scene and record for Knitting Factory label. With tight rock rhythms, heavy bass riffs and dynamic melodies. Kind of a new Hasidic New Wave yet more rock oriented and updated by the influences of the modern indie and alternative rock scene.

Good energy level and fine musicianship (great melodic interplay between trumpet and sax; some noisy guitar solos with a nice experimental edge) yet I felt dissapointed when each time they really got the things going heavy instead of switching into the hypnotic full-crazy mode they would stop abruptly in the middle of the line. I guess the strategy is to mantain the compact rock-song form but I'd like them to get loose and play possible longer takes than more tracks (especially since the short solos by Olgierd Dokalski hinted at something more extended and exciting). A solid concert though I felt that there's was potential for more.

Daktari :

Olgierd Dokalski - trumpet

Mateusz Franczak - tenor saxophone

Miron Grzegorkiewicz - guitar

Maciej Szczepanski - bass guitar

Robert Alabrudzinski - drums

Klub Meskalina. Poznan. 23.07.2011

2. Żydowski Surf (Jewish Surf)

Raphael Roginski, already the leader of Shofar (with Trzaska and Moretti on drums) and Cukunft, created this band to play 'jewish surf religious music' and that promises fun.

And fun it is indeed as he brings to this quartet Macio Moretti and Bartlomiej Tycinski from the absolutely brilliant and absolutely non-serious Mitch & Mitch group, while Ola Rzepka (playng with The Complainer & The Complainers among others) provides some steady rock beat.

To those who know the polish scene it's enough to say : immagine mixing together the Mitch & Mitch (fun and retro feeling mixed with joyfull punk attitude) and Shofar (Raphael Roginski's guitar is unmistakable). Otherwise I'll try to put it like this: if Beach Boys were a guitar group born in a punk era and playing klezmer music they might have sounded like this quartet. Or maybe the unfortunately short clip below will render a slight idea of how much fun this concert was.

Rapahel Roginski - guitar
Bartlomiej Tycinski - guitar
Macio Moretti - bass guitar
Ola Rzepka - drums

Klub Meskalina. Poznan. 23.07.2011