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Poetry

Adam Bałdych Quintet | Paolo Fresu

Poetry

Format: CD
Label: ACT music
UPC: 0614427993922
Catnr: ACT 99392
Release date: 29 October 2021
Buy at PlatoMania
1 CD
Buy at PlatoMania
 
Label
ACT music
UPC
0614427993922
Catalogue number
ACT 99392
Release date
29 October 2021

"One thing is certain: this album is to be listened to, to listen to, to listen and to listen again, as it is seductive, fascinating, bewitching."

Le Soir, 01-12-2021
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
Press
EN

About the album

Chance rem arks can have far-reaching consequences. When Adam Bałdych was in the early stages of working on the compositions for this new album, among the first feedback he received from a friend was the phrase “you are a poet of the violin.” That remark didn’t just give him the title of the album. It also set him thinking about the effect that music has on him and that, by extension, it can hopefully have on other people... Bałdych, described by Jaz z wise’s Stuart Nicholson as “probably the greatest violinist in jaz z today,” explains that im pulse quite sim ply: "I want to com m unicate." He has a strong desire, as he explains, to “create music which will come into people’s lives and stay with them.” Such beliefs have been reinforced and seemingly made more urgent by the detachment of the pandemic. He started asking himself the question: “What is there in my life story that I can share?” And that in turn led him to search for other lyrical and poetic voices, kindred spirits to place alongside his own. Thus we find one of the great lyrical voices of European jazz, Sardinian trumpeter Paolo Fresu, of whom Bałdych says: “This soul connection is the basic and most important thing, which can then be expressed in the music.” Fresu is on five tunes, most notably on the title track “Poetry”, a true gem at the heart of this programme. We also hear a saxophonist with whom Baldych feels a particularly strong affinity, Marek Konarski.

Both musicians grew up in the same town, Gorzów, roughly ten years apart.Their paths diverged in the years Konarski made his home in Denmark, where he is still involved in several projects. Bałdych says: “He is younger than me, but we have so much in common I sometimes feel we must have known each other in a past life.” That sense that this group is producing music which is rooted in a past reality is there right from the opening track, “I Remember”. The decision to place his own solo voice alongside others in “Poetry” m arks a further step in Baldych’s m usical journey, away from virtuosity towards the kind of authentic individual expression that feels most natural to him. “I stopped trying to be a virtuoso producing huge numbers of notes. I want to tell a story, and to shape and balance simplicity with the innovative language of the violin.”

He has also - literally - deepened his m usical voice, through the use of the renaissance violin, tuned a seventh below the normal violin. That sonorous voice has become more confident, and is to be heard at its most yearning and soulful on the deeply touching short tune "Grace". “Poetry” is also a landm ark album for Bałdych in another sense. It is about to be ten years since his appearance at a late night show at the Quasim odo club as part of Jaz z Fest Berlin in 2011. That performance, which also included pianist Krzysztof Dys, now part of Bałdych’s regular band, led to Siggi Loch signing the violinist the very next day to the ACT label, This is the Pole's sixth album for the label.

There have been other changes in Bałdych’s life in the past year. The album is dedicated to the violinist’s wife Karina, and to his young son Teodor who was born in 2020. Time not spent on the road has clearly had its compensations, and when Baldych talks, his deeply positive spirit shines through: “Troubles give the opportunity to do things you wouldn’t normally do. I have an improviser’s soul.” Adam Bałdych also feels a very strong connection to the regular quartet he has worked with for the past three years. Krzysztof Dys on piano, Michał Barański on bass, Dawid Fortuna on drums and Bałdych himself worked successfully together on “Sacrum Profanum”. Over the past three years the trust and the teamwork have deepened, and the way they dovetail together on “Poetry” shows that they are a working band in the truest sense of that phrase. “We really explore together, we work on the music like a string quartet does,” he says. And the listener can hear in tracks such as “I Remember” and “Open Sky” with their folk music energy, just how eager this band is to stretch out on these tunes in the live context. And audiences are responding too: the quartet scooped up the audience prize at the July 2021 BMW Jazz Welt Competition. Adam Bałdych has m arked the tenth anniversary of his arrival at ACT with an im portant album . “Poetry” is not just instantly appealing, it also has depth, honesty and soul.

Artist(s)

Adam Baldych (violin)

Paolo Fresu (trumpet)

The band of the country and major international prizes, the Sardinian countryside and disks, the discovery of jazz and the many collaborations, the love for the little things and Paris. There were few people really able to put together such a primer of elements and turn it into an incredibly fast growth style.  Paolo Fresu he succeeded just in a country like Italy where - for too long - the jazz culture was known as Shakespeare or the paintings of Matisse, where Louis Armstrong was little more than a freak of insane showcases Sanremo and Miles Davis discovered 'black' and very good after years of maximum creativity. The 'magic' is immense naturalness of a man who, like few others, managed to carry the...
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The band of the country and major international prizes, the Sardinian countryside and disks, the discovery of jazz and the many collaborations, the love for the little things and Paris. There were few people really able to put together such a primer of elements and turn it into an incredibly fast growth style. Paolo Fresu he succeeded just in a country like Italy where - for too long - the jazz culture was known as Shakespeare or the paintings of Matisse, where Louis Armstrong was little more than a freak of insane showcases Sanremo and Miles Davis discovered "black" and very good after years of maximum creativity. The "magic" is immense naturalness of a man who, like few others, managed to carry the deeper meaning of his magical land precisely in the most precious and freedom of the arts. At this point in his long and successful career, no longer need to enumerate recordings, prizes and various experiences that imposed at the international level and that they systematically and ecumenically love his music: in the sound of his trumpet is the sap that gave prestige to the new wave of European jazz, the depth of a thought not only music, generosity wants it "naturally" in the right place at the right time but, above all, the enormous and inexhaustible passion that sustains forever. This Paul is - as usual - whirling, worthy omnivorous artist and creative that everyone recognizes in him. Today (apart from a surprising literary side which resulted in the publication of some interesting editorial work) made ​​of its historic quintet is about to round the mark of 3 decades of full cooperation and mutual respect, but is also one of the quartet " Devil ", which rescues fully about the successes of the celebrated" Angel "who imposed European Paolo attention some five years ago. They grow then the important contemporary realities: the duet with Uri Caine, collaboration with Carla Bley and Steve Swallow and the lucky meeting with Ralph Towner that was the bridge at the entrance of Paul's name in the entourage of the celebrated and noble label ECM, which then published the beautiful work Mystical Mediterranean with Daniele Di Bonaventura and the choir A Filetta course, I am only a few of these. Its present more current sees active, more foreign things in perspective, in a trio with Richard Galliano and Swedish pianist Jan Lundgren ("Mare Nostrum") and several new adventures with new names entourage important contemporary jazz such as Omar Sosa, Gianluca Petrella, and - again - with Manu Katché, Eivind Aarset, Dave Douglas. Interesting are the projects with some great names of the literary and theatrical Italian (Ascanio Celestini, Lella Costa, Stefano Benni, Milena Vukotic) over, finally, a new series of small but important partnerships with the music "intelligent" fringes popular Italian. Music for the cinema and "special projects" as its unique "just" play that has paralyzed 3,000 spectators at the Auditorium of Rome or an enchanted theater Metastasio in Prato close the circle with the little big and crazy adventure that led him to celebrate in 2011 its 50th anniversary with 50 concerts, in 50 consecutive days with 50 formations and different projects of the day in 50 masterpieces landscape of his native Sardinia. It would certainly be a mistake to forget the winks to the world "Classic "that could soon surprises with ad hoc jobs when they may be involved string quartets looking ahead and great heroes Avantgarde music or, finally, the beautiful new work of" promotion "cha Paul is carrying out against many Young Lions entourage contemporary jazz through the possibilities offered their thanks to his new label Tǔk Music built specifically to look forward to.
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Composer(s)

Adam Baldych (violin)

Press

One thing is certain: this album is to be listened to, to listen to, to listen and to listen again, as it is seductive, fascinating, bewitching.
Le Soir, 01-12-2021

A polite, appreciative concept
Jazzthing, 01-11-2021

Play album Play album

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