Tomasz Dąbrowski - Tomasz Dąbrowski & The Individual Beings (February 11, 2022 April Records)

POLISH TRUMPET STAR’S NEW ALBUM HONORS ICON ON HISTORIC HORN

Tomasz Dąbrowski makes his April Records debut with an all-star septet, presenting music inspired by Tomasz Stańko and reflecting on his lasting legacy, lessons learned, and making music on one of the legend’s own storied instruments.

“There are several layers of connection with Stańko,” Tomasz Dąbrowski (b.1984) explains. Both celebrated Polish musicians with the same first name were also wired in similarly creative ways – each forging ahead in their own unmistakable voices on the same instrument (literally the same trumpet… more on that later). Stańko (1942-2018), the recently departed legend, imparted artistic wisdom through his example during their time working together.

In addition to listening to Stańko’s music while growing up in Poland, Dąbrowski had a poster of the jazz titan in his bedroom for years and remembers the first time they met: “He knew who I was… that was very encouraging,” the younger Tomasz says.

This new album is also connected to Stańko in multiple ways. The band was initially created for a concert in Lodz in May of 2020 when Dąbrowski was commissioned to write (and assemble an ensemble to present) new music for the closing concert at the Letnia Akademia Jazzu in Poland that year. He used it as an opportunity to honor his late hero, mentor, colleague, bandmate, and friend. The concert was a success and a recording session was planned for the following year, giving Tomasz time to write and polish new material. The result of the session is the deeply moving and exciting album available to listeners today.

“For a long time, I thought that it was important to be able to play ‘everything’ and make it sound ‘right,’ but after I met Stanko and had some time to reflect on this, I realized that what’s most important is to have your own voice – a voice so strong that it can exist in whatever context you choose and it will still be you,” Dąbrowski shares.

The band’s name and album’s title, Individual Beings, is also a reference to a Stańko quote – taken from Desperado, a print biography available only in Polish – which Dąbrowski translates for us: “I don't feel lonely. I am an individual being… I am Polish, I was born here, Polish is my main language, I am deeply connected with this land, but most of all I feel I am Tomasz Stańko. Individual Being. I am a unique gathering of atoms, there is no one else like that in the world, in the cosmos. Here I am.”

That resonated deeply with Dąbrowski, who took it even further: “we’re all Individual Beings, and our individuality is the strongest thing we have to offer the world – it has to be protected and developed.”

Dąbrowski has honored that mindset and responsibility throughout his career, and never more so than on this new album. The music on this recording, which he describes among other things as a “search for simplicity,” is brought to life by the trumpeter/composer/arranger and six other musicians – apart from saxophonist Fredrik Lundin (Denmark) and drummer Knut Finsrud (Norway), the rest of the group’s members are Polish or based in Poland (Irek Wojtczak on tenor/soprano saxophone & electronics, Grzegorz Tarwid on grand piano & keyboards, Max Mucha on double bass, and Jan Emil Mtynarski on electric & acoustic drums). Each musician arrived into the bandleader’s life sometime over the last half-decade or so, and was chosen for this project, specifically, for their representation and manifestation of one of the things most important to Dąbrowski: “personality, both on and off stage.”

Finally, there’s the horn. During the recording session for the new album, Tomasz (Dąbrowski) played one of Stańko’s horns – his primary instrument in the 1990s, on which he did some of his best work – on loan from Anna Stańko, daughter of the dear departed. “It gave a lot of power to me,” the bandleader says.

That power can be felt, heard, and celebrated throughout Tomasz Dąbrowski’s first release on April Records – as he and the other six other Individual Beings in a powerful, brilliantly and acutely attuned septet present a program that traverses a vast sonic soundscape. This is the next riveting chapter in the story of a real-time rising star and a mature, reflective homage to a late, great legend. 

1. JR 06:19

2. Old Habits 05:10

3. In Transit 03:36

4. Sandy 06:06

5. Troll 06:41

6. Queen of Mondays 04:21

7. Short Gesture 05:08

8. Spurs of Luck 04:25

Tomasz Dąbrowski – Trumpet and Electronics

Fredrik Lundin – Tenor Saxophone

Irek Wojtczak – Tenor and Soprano Saxophone plus Electronics

Grzegorz Tarwid – Grand Piano and Keyboards

Max Mucha – Double Bass

Knut Finsrud – Acoustic Drums

Jan Emil Młynarski – Electric and Acoustic Drums

Produced by Tomasz Dąbrowski and Michał Kupicz

Recorded by Michał Kupicz

Mixed by Michał Kupicz

Mastered by Kæv Gliemann

Photos by Filip Ćwik (front) and Sisi Cecylia (back)

Liner Notes by Peter Margasak, DownBeat

Cover design by Enrico Andreis

All compositions by Tomasz Dąbrowski

PRE-ORDER

Irek Wojtczak Quintet - Play It Again (FUNDACJA SLUCHAJ 2018)

FUSK - The Jig Is Up (WHY PLAY JAZZ 2018)

FUSK is 100% contemporary jazz, catapulted forward by the creative ingenuity of the band members; these are players who have something to say! The music is intensive, joyous. It grabs you, as it expands out of its musical roots and takes off and into the open air.

Kasper Tom Christiansen is no purist; instead, he tastefully mixes genres, as much at home with the techniques required in contemporary new music as with the improvisational surprises of free jazz.

FUSK takes up a wide field of play, and this adventurous quartet doesn’t like to be fenced in. It all begins with the members of a band that has been in existence for some ten years. “The Jig Is Up” is FUSK’s fourth album. Trumpet (now with a new band member, the amazing Polish musician, Tomasz Dabrowski), bass clarinet/clarinet (Rudi Mahall), bass (Andreas Lang), and drums: It’s a band that reminds you of such breakthrough bands of the early 1960’s as the classic Ornette Coleman Quartet, the New York Art Quartet, or Archie Shepp’s early quartet with trumpeter Bill Dixon. At first listen they sound a bit retro, indicative of the revolutionary fervor of the time. But straightaway you sense there’s something deeper here, something playful, with an understated humor that transports history into the present.

Despite their complexity, the compositions are far from obtrusive. FUSK evinces an amazing lightness in their play – there’s an edge to the tempos and a synergy between the two horns. That may sound like blue light (high speed) driving, like a club in which you’d love to spend the evening, like big city street scenes, like an enchanted past with imprints in the here and now. It is intensive, joyous music with a melodic incisiveness. It grabs you. Expanding out of its musical roots, it takes off into the open air, as it constructs and deconstructs the musical material in the same breath.

This acoustic band has fun with the album’s feel of freewheeling swing. There’s often a tongue-in-cheek attitude to the music’s mercurial, gripping shifts and turns. It’s fresh music that plays around with the sounds we are used to hearing, as the musicians tip their hats to the past while at the same time blasting through traditional styles.

There’s a balance within the turbulence that oscillates between the compositions and the continual leaps of creative furor. Nothing takes a life of its own here, since everything is dedicated to the service of the musical situation. And there’s the band’s whimsical name, FUSK, which could be translated as “messing around”. With the band’s ironic musical allusions and subtle humor, the name fits. Yet, the irony never degenerates into cheap tricks; there is never a lack of creative ideas.

Concerts 2018

Jun 30, 2018 - Svendborg, DK @ Jazzfestival

Oct 28, 2018 - Pohrsdorf, DE @ Saxstall

Nov 01, 2018 - Stuttgart, DE @ Theaterhaus Stuttgart, IG Jazzfestival

Nov 03, 2018 - Lokeren, BE @ Lokerse Jazzklub

Circles  5:07

The Jig Is Up  6:54

Happy New Year  5:47

Blacklisted  3:53

Pennies  6:17

Politics  5:21

I Play Tennis And Blues  4:00

Song for Otto  5:59

Dyrk Dild  4:11

Minervois  7:27

Kasper Tom Christiansen (dr, comp)

Tomasz Dąbrowski (tp)

Andreas Lang (b)

Rudi Mahall (bcl)

Recorded, mixed and mastered October 2017 by Tito Knapp at Tito’s Zentrifuge, Berlin, Germany

All compositions by Kasper Tom Christiansen

Produced by Kasper Tom Christiansen for WhyPlayJazz

Design by Travassos

Photo by Kristoffer Juel

With support from Svendborg Musikråd, DJBFA and Koda’s Cultural Funds

Tomasz Dąbrowski - S-O-L-O: 30th Birthday / 30 Concerts / 30 Cities (2016) BAREFOOT RECORDS

S-O-L-O: “30th Birthday/30 Concerts/30 Cities” is Tomasz Dąbrowski’s seventh album as a leader and his first solo recording. This album is the culmination of a series of solo concerts celebrating his 30th birthday performed in 30 cities in 12 different countries over almost seven months, plus three formal recording sessions held in various locations around Copenhagen. The album is made up of 10 songs intended to represent 10 chapters of one story.

This is music inspired by sumi-e, the Japanese ink and wash painting technique. Its goal is not simply to reproduce the appearance of an object, but to capture its essence. Like a sumi-e artist, painting with one stroke without removing the brush from the canvas, Dąbrowski translates this idea into music, telling the story with only one instrument. He takes the listener to his very private world, encompassing previous experiences and his contemporary musical inspirations.

As Dąbrowski says: “There are a few moments in your life when things change once and for all. To me it is turning 30, simply because for the first time I can feel time is going by faster and faster. Instead of thinking about the past though, I’m looking to the future trying new things, looking for another unopened door.

Playing solo is most definitely the most challenging setting I could think of. I decided to give myself a present and celebrate my ‘getting older’ state of mind, with 30 solo concerts in 30 cities in various countries. There were no other musicians on the bandstand, no electronics or amps, only the trumpet and the mutes. It’s just me dealing with myself, ideas, directions and doubts.”

A documentary film S-O-L-O: “30th Birthday/30 Concerts/30 Cities” is directed by Kristoffer Juel – the winner of the Award of Excellence, Multimedia Issue Reporting Story, 73rd annual Pictures of the Year International (POYi). The movie includes interviews, footage from the recording sessions and the concerts. It will be available online along with the album.

01 Part I

02 Part II

03 Part III

04 Part IV

05 Part V

06 Part VI

07 Part VII

08 Part VIII

09 Part IX

10 Part X

Tomasz Dabrowski: trumpet and mutes

All music is written by Tomasz Dąbrowski / KODA 

Recorded at Mariendal Kirke, Copenhagen, June 2015 

Recorded, mixed and mastered by John Fomsgaard 

Cover art / design: Paulina Białkowska

www.tomdabrowski.com