“There’s a galaxy of piano trios in today’s jazz universe,” the BBC Music Magazine has noted, “but few shine as bright as Marcin Wasilewski’s”. On its seventh ECM album the multifaceted Polish group illuminates a characteristically wide span of music. On En attendant, collectively created pieces are juxtaposed with Wasilewski’s malleable “Glimmer of Hope”, Carla Bley’s timeless “Vashkar”, The Doors’ hypnotic “Riders On The Storm” and a selection from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Fluidity is the hallmark , allied to the deep listening made possible by more than a quarter-century of collaborative music-making by pianist Wasilewski, bassist Kurkiewicz and drummer Miskiewicz. En attendant was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in August 2019, and produced by Manfred Eicher.
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BACKGROUND
Recorded just prior to their Arctic Riff collaboration with Joe Lovano, En attendant finds Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Michal Miskiewicz in thoughtful, exploratory mood. The multifaceted Polish group illuminates a characteristically wide span of music, the scope extending from Bach to group improvisation. On En attendant, collectively created pieces are juxtaposed with Wasilewski’s malleable “Glimmer of Hope”, Carla Bley’s timeless “Vashkar”, The Doors’ hypnotic “Riders on the Storm” and a selection from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, transformed in the context. Fluidity is the hallmark, allied to the deep listening made possible by more than a quarter-century of collaborative music-making.
The tripartite “In Motion” offers the most thorough account yet of the trio’s capacity for finding forms in the moment, shaping and developing musical structures with a running sense of architectural proportion. “In Motion Part I” gives way to Variation 25 from the Goldberg Variations, a reminder that all roads lead to Bach, eventually. The trio’s take on the minor key aria gently probes its atmosphere of dark passion and encircles its exquisite melody.
Paul Bley’s Footloose! recording of 1963 was where many musicians first learned about Carla Bley as a composer. As Marcin Wasilewski recently noted it “opened the gates to something undiscovered”, including the inexhaustible mysteries of tunes like “Vashkar,” which has become one of the pieces the trio likes to revisit, always finding something new inside it.
Pop and rock cover versions have also long been part of the trio’s story. Earlier recordings have found the group re-contextualising Björk’s “Hyperballad”, Prince’s “Diamonds and Pearls”, the Police’s “Message in a Bottle” and more. The Doors’ iconic “Riders on the Storm” now joins the list, in a subtly unconventional arrangement. While the rhythmic feel here hews to a bubbling groove close to the original, bassist Slawomir Kurkewicz is to the fore for much of the tune, soloing inside the form, while Wasilewski mines the harmonies.
Marcin’s rubato ballad “Glimmer of Hope” moves like the waves, floating its glistening motive through changing tonalities over Michal Miskiewicz’s detailed cymbals and drums.
Marcin Wasilewski and Slawomir Kurkiewicz (both born in 1975) have been playing in trio with Michal Miskiewicz (born 1977) since 1993. The group quickly became an important force on the Polish jazz scene, both in its own right and as three quarters of Tomasz Stanko’s band.
It was with Stanko that they first came to ECM appearing on the acclaimed albums Soul of Things (recorded 2001), followed by Suspended Night (2003), and Lontano (2005). Stanko, who was also a mentor for the trio, enthused, “In the entire history of Polish jazz, we’ve never had a band like this one. I’m surprised by these musicians every day. They just keep getting better and better.”
This sentiment was echoed in the press, with JazzTimes observing, “Marcin Wasilewski does not think like other jazz pianists. His improvisational underpinning, his sense of musical space and his aural imagery are so fresh they are initially mysterious, then get more so. …It takes nerve for a young trio to create music of such stillness, such patience. The fact that the three have played together since they were teenagers is audible in the way they trust the epiphanies they collectively come upon.”
Albums by Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Michal Miskiewicz on ECM include Trio (recorded 2004), January (2007), Faithful (2010), Spark of Life (2014, with Joakim Milder), Live (2016), and Arctic Riff (2019, with Joe Lovano). The trio, plus saxophonist Trygve Seim, also contribute to guitarist Jakob Young’s recording Forever Young (2013). Wasilewski and Kurkuwicz appear, furthermore, on Manu Katché’s albums Neighbourhood (2004) and Playground (2007).
Recorded at Studios La Buissonne in August 2019.
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Awesome Music!
This is some of the most beautiful trio music I have ever heard. This is one of the finest trios of our time. Awesome!
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THREE ARTISTS PLAYING AS ONE
This is the seventh album of the Marcin Wasilewski trio to come out of ECM Records, the label with the highest sound quality of any that exist. Though the albums are released under Marcin Wasilewski’s name, a more appropriate title for the group would be all three of their names -- Wasilewski-Kurkiewicz-Miskiewicz-- so well and together do these three talents play. (They’ve been playing together since 1991, when Wasilewski and Kurkiewicz, 15, and Miskiewicz, 13, formed a trio and placed third in the juniors category at the Polish Jazz Festival.) If you haven’t heard them yet, think the Brad Mehldau-Larry Grenadier-Jorge Rossy trio of the early ‘90s. Wasilewski is as accomplished a pianist as Mehldau, though most often he plays less intricate lines, but both are master performers with a strong lyrical sense and a killer grasp of harmonics and dynamics, and both have surrounded themselves with players who see music the same way they do. As on this trio’s earlier albums, the music is not at all showy. It’s performed mostly at slow or medium tempo, Wasilewski’s piano rich but muted, Miskiewicz’s drums tickling or ticking around the edge, Kurkiewicz’s long rich bass lines reminiscent of Palle Danielsen maybe, ringing out in his solo shots, then shading back to support the piano when Wasilewski returns to the fray. There are seven compositions, all medium in length, five to seven minutes, more or less. They include a long meditation on one of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Carla Bley’s “Vashkar,” almost certainly her most recorded piece, and Jim Morrison’s “Riders on the Storm.” The other pieces come from the trio, one by Wasilewski alone and three (“In Motion, Pt. 1 … 2 … 3”) written or improvised collectively. All are first rate but “In Motion, Pt. 1” is especially grabbing. This is a very good album. But none of the albums this marvelous group has issued has been anything less than superb.
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Yet More Beauty From the Polish Guys
Been listening to these gentlemen for over a decade. I have yet to be disappointed by their music. This release is the most current example of how they continue on a sublime arc of musical creativity. The listener being the benefactor here. If you need a good example of what wonders that they can produce, give the Bach Goldberg Variation a listen. It may be Bach, but unless you are familiar with the tune as written by Bach, you would not have a clue that Bach had a thing to do with what this Trio makes of it!
