Jan 'Ptaszyn' Wroblewski S.P.P.T. Chalturnik
Stowarzyszenie Popierania Prawdziwej Tworczosci

Label: Polskie Nagrania - Muza , 1974/2007
Catalogue No: PNCD 1095 (SX 1079)
Format: CD digipak, Deluxe Edition (24-bit re-mastered from original master tapes)

Tracks:

1. Nasze male trzydziestolecie
2. Lampasiasty
3. El Condor Pasa
4. Medley: Serende in Blue/ I'm Getting Sentimental
5. Cockneyem
6. What's New Pussycat
7. Podwieczorek bez mikrofonu
8. Music for my friends
9. Experience

Performed by:

Jan Ptaszyn Wroblewski - tenor saxophone, "mouth synthesizer", leader
Zbigniew Namyslowski - alto saxophone
Janusz Muniak - tenor saxophone
Tomasz Szukalski - bass clarinet, clarinet, tenor saxophone
Zdzislaw Piernik - tuba
Jan Jarczyk - piano, trombone
Tomasz Ochalski - piano (tracks 2, 10 only)
Bronislaw Suchanek - bass
Jerzy Bezucha - drums

Recorded:
July 1974, Warsaw, Poland

About:

The 1970s, the third decade of Jan 'Ptaszyn' Wroblewski's career, he truly became an indispensable ingredient in the many flavors being created in Polish Jazz. Wroblewski was already an accomplished tenor and baritone player in a variety of bands, leading his own small groups with straight-ahead inclinations and a love of Horace Silver phrasing. But the accomplishments of his small bands have become obscured by his much closer association with free jazz inclined 'Studio Jazzowe Polskiego Radia' - part venue for free expression by virtuosos and soloists and part workshop for musicians and composers.

What might have been initially a joke, or the result of the willful consumption of too much liquid distillated from Polish potatoes, another forum for Wroblewski's expression in the 1970s was S.P.T.T. - Stowarzyszenie Popierania Prawdziwej Tworczosci (the Association for Advancement of Real Art) or Chalturnik. "Chalturnik" in Polish means somebody who does not perform its work well, but in contrary - very bad and without to much caring about it. One could describe the music of Chalturnik as a mix of bar mitzvah / weeding band sounds, 1920s happy jazz, and Art Ensemble of Chicago mambo-jumbo philosophy, all filled with clichéd Peruvian street group repertoire and as weird as Burt Bacharach's psychedelic soundtrack to 1967 James Bond flick "Casino Royal".

Chalturnik was natural extension for Wroblewski's Jazz Studio experiments. However, the band had a more intimate and relaxed atmosphere and used musical persiflage or banter. Nevertheless, the premise remained the same: to experiment, to confront taboos, to challenge judgments and to take new unorthodox approaches to attitudes never before questioned - but with much more distance and humor. The lineup of Chalturnik included some of the brightest stars from Polish Jazz constellation of 1970s like Z. Namyslowski, J. Muniak, and T. Szukalski as well as other musicians not normally associated with Polish jazz, among them tuba player Z. Piernik, famous for his interpretation of Krzysztof Penderecki's music.