Nu Ensemble at 8th Krakow Jazz Autumn - day IV (11.10)

The fourth and the final of the Alchemia evenings was so packed that it seems impossible to me to fit the whole in a single post but I'll try to do a telegraphic one.

Set I 

Once again a solo + duo + solo formula. Dieb13 appears on stage behind 5 (!) turntables, the music is a mirage of loops, electronic noises, acoustic samples. A marriage of analogue sounds in a digital world. Impressive sense of drama and tension and technical mastery in managing the five different sources contemporaneously.

Peter Evans and Per-Ake Holmlander

Peter Evans and Per-Ake Holmlander started off with a series of burps on the horns but this time the real pleasure was to hear Peter Evans playing in the more "traditional" free-jazz vein, with wild runs trumpet flights (l had an immage of a hunter playing his bugle, with the steadier tuba walkig by heavily).

Nu Ensemble at 8th Krakow Jazz Autumn - day I (08.10)

Autumn has arrived and with it the Jazz Autumn Festival in Kraków. It took three years to bring back Nu Ensemble together, some of the musicians in the group have visited Krakow on many occasions before, few came to Alchemia for the first time and they all received a warm welcome from the full crowd audience.

Paulina Owczarek and Tomek Gadecki

Differently to the weeks with Resonance and Barry Guy New Orchestra, the program scheduled for the week has a strong focus on solo and duo performances, with the last set reserved for a bigger group. The new element is the presentation of the polish improv scene and the honor of launching the festival was given to Paulina Owczarek and Tomek Gadecki - SamBar duo. Two baritone saxophones filled the musical space with intriguing sonoristic effects, smoothly exchanging "rhythmic" and "melodic" roles and exploring the unexpected possibilites of the instruments. Coincise and rewarding performance.

The second set was introduced with a short minirecital by Stine J Motland with (as Mats would say afterwards) "some kind of vocal".