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Laboratorium
"The end of the 60’s is an important period in jazz,
as well as rock music. Both in Poland and the rest of the world,
the year 1969 was a caesura for those who saw in records such us
King Crimson’s debut the birth of progressive rock, and those
for whom Krzysztof Komeda’s death marked the end of a certain
stage in Polish jazz. The boundaries are of course a totally contractual
and unspecified matter, but definitely the turn of the 60’s
and 70’s was an extremely creative period, which set the foundations
for various styles and trends. In this time – the year 1970
– in Krakow, Laboratorium was also born – although its
roots must be searched for in a more distant past...
Janusz Grzywacz, Laboratorium’s leader, set his first musical
steps in Krakow. Basically throughout the whole high school period
he regularly formed bands: Smiacze, Lamparty, Tytani, in which also
played Marek Stryszowski, his school companion, who happened to
live on the same street. In that time Grzywacz had also connections
with Krakow’s cabaret scene and with the emerging STU Theatre.
During his collage years in Polish studies he formed another band.
Eventually a five-person lineup was set, consisting of Janusz Grzywacz
(piano), Mieczyslaw Górka (drums), Waclaw Lozinski (flute),
Edmund Maciwoda (bass, soon to be replaced by Maciej Górski)
and Marek Stryszowski, who did the vocals and played the bassoon,
to finally replace it by a sax.
Their live debut was on the Gitariada ’71 festival. They
start to play fusion, jazz-rock music, as the predecessors of such
sounds in Poland. The first years of their activity brought mainly
acoustic music, cleverly escaping any definitions. The musicians
searched and experimented. The situation in which Poland was at
that time – the limited access to Western recordings and albums
– was not an obstacle for the band. On the contrary, Laboratorium
became an unique sound, which was often underlined in various reviews.
The band’s album debut was in January 1973. The record consisted
of two tracks recorded in April ’72 in a studio that belonged
to the PR III of the Polish Radio. That recording session was an
award for taking second place on the Jazz Nad Odra ’72 festival.
The tracks were noticed for a different approach both towards harmony
and tension-building. The first song – “Choral”
– included also a vocal fragment by Marek Stryszowski. In
the latter period his signing became an important and significant
element building Labolatoriu’s style, although it limited
only to vocalizations, often revealing the use of electronic voice-modulation
effects – here, however, Stryszowski, as a ‘classical’
vocalist, sings the track’s lyrics.
In 1973 the band was again awarded on the Jazz Nad Odra festival,
this time taking first place and the award for best composition
(Janusz Grzywacz’s “Prognoza na jutro”). This
prize actually meant an advance from the amateur status to professionalism.
In 1975 Czeslaw Niemen, who just left his band Aerolit, offered
the group his cooperation. He performed with Laboratorium on several
shows and festivals, presenting music from the album “Katharsis”
along with new songs, which became the basis for a double-album
“Idee Fixe”, released a few years later. The cooperation
had however only a ‘guest’ character – Niemen
soon formed a new band, while Laboratorium kept following their
own path. The band met at that time with another musician –
Tomasz Stanko, with whom they performed at Zaduszki Jazzowe ‘
75. The music undergone some changes (Janusz Grzywacz replaced his
acoustic piano for a novelty at that time – Fender Rhodes),
so did the lineup. The band parted with Waclaw Lozinski and Maciej
Górski was soon replaced by Krzysztof Scieranski (known from
playing with Marek Grechuta), followed by his brother Pawel Scieranski,
who became the first guitarist in the history of Laboratorium. In
this lineup the band recorded its first official album – “Modern
Pentathlon”.
The record consisted of a long, five-part title track – „Pieciobój
nowoczesny” and four shorter songs, apart from one (“Grzymaszka”),
strongly settled in the funky style. In the title suite we can hear
electronically modulated vocalizations by Marek Stryszowski (whose
experiments could resemble the style of Urszula Dudziak), as well
as a rich usage of sound potentiality of a single, monophonic Roland
synthesizer (which was operated at that time by Janusz Grzywacz)
and accelerated, fragments based on twitchy, pulsating drums, and
recalling the achievements of Mahavishnu Orchestra. What is important,
the band with all those various references kept their artistic identity,
confirmed with musical sensitivity and the musicians’ skills.
The album was released in the Polish jazz series (nr 49) in an
unbelievable pace considering the Polish phonographic standards
at that time. There often occurred such situations when the time
from recording the album to releasing it took about a year or even
longer, while Laboratorium’s debut – recorded in the
beginning of summer ’76 – was launched in fall, during
the next Jazz Jamboree festival. An innovatory (at that time) album
premiere was organized in the Polish Recordings hall in Warsaw,
along with record-signing (years after it was announced that the
sales count for “Modern Pentathlon” reached 115 thousand
copies!). Following the success of their album the band begins to
perform again, apart from playing in Poland it also visits Germany,
as well as the exotic Jazz Yatra festival, which took place in 1978
in India and was another important step in the group’s career
(apart from Laboratorium the Polish representation consisted also
of Czeslaw Niemen’s and Zbigniew Namyslowski’s bands).
Even before the trip to the festival, in 1997 the group recorded
another two albums with a lineup extended by Pawel Valde-Nowak,
playing the congas. During the September shows in Warsaw’s
“Akwarium”, an album for the „Bialy Kruk Czarnego
Krazka” series was recorded – “Aquarium Live No.
1”, which tried to capture the atmosphere present on Laoratorium’s
concerts. Meanwhile, in Krakow’s “Rotunda” the
band recorded the album “Nurek”, which was supposed
to be released by Polskie Nagrania, at the time of the Jazz Yatra
festival. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. Simultaneously
the band was contacting Helicon (the International Jazz Federation’s
record label), which eventually released “Nurek” under
the English title “Diver”. As for Polskie Nagrania,
the group prepared in 1979 a one-record album “Quasimodo”
(Polish Jazz series, nr 58), while the material meant for Elacoli,
“Nogero”, was released on the German market by View
Records. The first of the albums contained a few longer compositions
intertwining with various and fascinating miniatures.
The end of the 70’s brought another personal changes within
the band – the group parted with Mieczyslaw Górka,
who was in Laboratorium from the beginning. Andrzej Mrowiec, previously
known from Maanam, became Laboratorium’s new drummer. Soon
after that Krzysztof Scieranski left the band and started a cooperation
with Zbigniew Namyslowski (he was replaced by Krzysztof Olesinski,
also from Maanam) and so did his brother Pawel (Ryszard Styla took
his place in Laboratorium).
After a successful performance at the Zurich Jazz Festival, a Swiss
agency Face Music took care of the band. In these years Laboratorium
performed on less shows in Poland, more often visiting the West.
In the turn of February and March ’82 the group recorded its
performances in Krakow’s STU Theatre and released them on
an album “The Blue Light Pilot” (with the following
lineup: Grzywacz – Stryszowski – Styla – Olesinski
– Mrowiec). The band’s music slowly changed, so did
the instrumentation – Janusz Grzywacz more often used various
synthesizers, as well as one of the first in Poland, custom-made
16-step sequencer. On that album for the first (and only) time appeared
a track which wasn’t written by the band – Thelonious
Monk’s “Straight No Chaser”, arranged in an unique
way, mostly thanks to the mentioned sequencer. In the title track,
extremely mechanical and full of energy, there are interwoven various
citations and references. The next album – “No. 8”
(1984) – continued the band’s search, giving more original
ideas. Among them worth mentioning are the use of a vocoder, the
enrichment of the rhythmic pattern by adding Jan Pilch’s various
percussion instruments and the guest appearance by violin player
Jan Bledowski, who later toured with the band. The last studio album
with brand new material was prepared two years later. “Anatomy
Lesson” was another logical step in Laboratorium’s career.
Sampled sounds appeared – yet another progress in the musical
search. The album till this day intrigues with the variety of its
sound, in the same time being compact and characteristic to the
band’s overall creation.
The group also functioned as a trio: Grzywacz – Stryszowski
– Pilch, performing with this lineup on festivals such as
“Electric Music Island” in Wroclaw (1984). Meanwhile,
Jan Pilch permanently joins the band. In the last years of their
activity, Laboratorium was supported by Jaroslaw Smietana, among
other places they visited Switzerland.
In various press articles from the 90’s one can see the year
1990 as the end of Laboratorium’s career. During the next
decade the band appeared several times on stage, also during the
celebration of their 25th anniversary (which was documented by TV
production “25 Years of Laborka”) – all the band’s
guitarists appeared together on stage at that time. Janusz Grzywacz
is an active illustrative musician, he writes for the theatre (more
than 100 premieres) and for the film, he also released two solo
albums – “Muzyka osobista” and “Mlynek Kawowy”.
Marek Stryszowski performs with his band Little Egoist, he’s
also the boss of a PSJ branch in Krakow. It’s impossible not
to write about all of Laboratorium’s musicians – some
of them are still active on the scene, others ended their careers
in music. Laboratorium, however, gained a solid and unquestionable
status in Polish rock and jazz music. Janusz Grzywacz sums it up:
I think we had our fantastic.. no, not five - eleven minutes, which
I sincerely wish to all musicians. We played more than a thousand
concerts, were invited by major festivals and recorded 9 albums.
I know that such thing is impossible to achieve in the jazz market
nowadays. I also know that Laboratorium never really fell apart,
to be honest. It’s because that our music is still inside
us. In each of us there’s still the same way of thinking and
playing, the same sensitivity and perspective towards music, which
characterized Laborka. And it always will.
text courtesy of: Michal Wilczynski and Metal Mind Productions
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