Andrzej Kurylewicz Quintet - Go Right

Label: Polskie Nagrania - Muza , 1963/2005
Catalogue No: PNCD 900 (XL 0186)
Format: CD (24-bit re-mastered from original master tapes)
 

This is a Brand New, Genuine and Sealed CD from Polskie Nagrania - Muza (Poland) with entire material and the original cover design from a very first Polish Jazz record ever released!

Tracks:

1. Go Right (Karolak)
2. Obsession (Kurylewicz)
3. Green Eayed Girl (Wroblewski)
4. Yenom On (Wroblewski)
5. So-so (Karolak)
6. Nayamalan (Kurylewicz)
7. One Step Nearer You (Wroblewski)
8. Minor Bop (Kurylewicz)
9. Microphonophobia (Karolak)
   

Line-up:

Andrzej Kurylewicz - trumpet
Jan "Ptaszyn" Wroblewski - tenor sax & flute
Wojciech Karolak - piano
Tadeusz Wojcik - bass
Andrzej Dabrowski - drums

Recorded:

in Warsaw, June 1963.

About:

In contrary to another icon of Polish Jazz Andrzej Trzaskowski, Andrzej Kurylewicz (born in 1932), was initially more a man of swing then an avant-garde. He was also a a man of many talents: composer, pianist, trumpet-player, and trombonist. Born in Lwow, 1932, he began his musical education in the Music School (Szkola Muzyczna) in Lwow, and in the Institute of Music (Instytut Muzyczny) in Gliwice. He went on to study in college at the Academy of Music (Wyzsza Szkola Muzyczna) in Kraków - piano under Henryk Sztompka, and composition under Stanislaw Wiechowicz.

In 1954 he was kicked out from the Music Academy for... playing jazz. With political liberalization few years later, he made his debut as the founder of the Polish Radio Jazz Band (Zespol Jazzowy Polskiego Radia) in Kraków and later on worked as a leader of Polish Radio Organ Sextet (Sekstet Organowy Polskiego Radia). Every year, since 1958 until 1971, he presented own programs at the annual Jazz Jamboree festivals with his bands: Jazz Believers, Modernisci, trios, quartets, quintets and with Jazz Orchestra of the Polish Radio (later on known as Studio Jazzowe). He collaborated with variety of artists, including Czeslaw Niemen and Tomasz Stanko. In 1969 he founded the Formation of Contemporary Music (Formacja Muzyki Wspolczesnej - strings, brass and percussion), which he led till 1979. In 1967, in Warsaw’s Old Town, with his wife Wanda Warska - a singer and painter – he opened 'Piwnica Artystyczna Kurylewiczow' – a studio for the performance of musical and literary forms, distinct and combined.

He was a passionate artist, who has changed several times the field of his interests and activities, since late 1960s he began drifting from Jazz field more toward contemporary classical music. As a composer, he belonged - as he himself has put it: 'to the post-avant-garde of the late 20th century'. He composed numerous pieces for symphonic orchestra, for chamber orchestra, as well as many song-cycles, psalms for Latin texts, and a wide range of solo works, for piano, harpsichord, organ, flute, tuba, double-bass, and others. As a pianist, Andrzej Kurylewicz valued highly the music of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski, offering particularly outstanding interpretations of all twenty-two of that composer’s Mazurkas. In his improvisations on the piano, he has been particularly innovative in combining classical and contemporary music with jazz. In 1959 he collaborated with 'Teatr Rapsodyczny' in Krakow, and wrote his first score for the movie ('Powrót'), starting life long successful collaboration with film and theatre. His biggest hit was a score to made for TV show 'Polskie Drogi', the songs from this movie were recorded and re-interpreted by many artists worldwide, including Pat Metheny.

Kurylewicz, who once admitted that he 'never escaped from Jazz' came back to regular playing with his own jazz trio in 1994. Kurylewicz departed on April 12, 2007.