THE ANDRZEJ TRZASKOWSKI QUINTET

THE ANDRZEJ TRZASKOWSKI QUINTET
The Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet
Polish Jazz vol. 4

Label: Polskie Nagrania - Muza / Polskie Radio, 1965/2005
Catalogue No: PRCD 535 (XL 0258)
Format: CD (24-bit re-mastered in 2005 at Polskie Nagrania from original master tapes)

Tracks:

1. Requiem dla Scota La Faro
2. Synopsis
3. Ballada z silverowska kadencja
4. Sinobrody
5. Post Scriptum
6. Wariacja jazzowa na temat "chmiela"

All music by Andrzej Trzaskowski

Recorded:

Tracks 1-4 - January 20-22, 1965, tracks 5-6 - February 18 1965 at Polskie Nagrania Studio, Warsaw, Poland

Performed by:

Andrzej Trzaskowski - piano
Tomasz Stanko - trumpet (1,2,4)
Janusz Muniak - soprano sax (1,2,4), alto sax (1,4)
Jacek Ostaszewski - bass
Adam Jedrzejowski - drums

About:

Andrzej Trzaskowski was born in Krakow, Poland, March 23, 1933. He played the piano as a child and later studied musicology at university in Krakow (to 1957); he also took private lessons in composition and contemporary music theory and was active at the experimental studio of Polish radio. In 1951 he helped to form Melomani, one of the first Polish swing and bop groups. During 1958 he played and recorded with the Jazz Believers, a quintet that included Wojciech Karolak and Jan Wróblewski, and worked with another quintet, led by Jerzy Matuszkiewicz. The following year he formed his own hard-bop group, the Wreckers, with which he toured the USA in 1962; as the leader of small groups he performed and recorded with American musicians visiting Poland, such as Stan Getz (1960) and Ted Curson (1965-6). Many leading Polish musicians, including Zbigniew Namyslowski, Tomasz Stanko, and Michal Urbaniak, played with his groups early in their careers. Trzaskowski began to incorporate avant-garde techniques in his work from 1964. In the late 1960s he worked regularly for Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Hamburg, West Germany, writing more than 20 compositions and participating in workshops, then from 1975 he led an orchestra for Polish radio and television. Although an excellent pianist, from the early 1970s he has concentrated more on composition. He has written music for films and theater, two jazz ballets, and Nihil novi, a third-stream work performed by Don Ellis at the International Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw in 1962.  (Adam Slawinski)

*****

Jazz critics rank Trzaskowski's albums among the most important recordings of European jazz of the '60s. They are essential documents of an era when jazz musicians in Europe started to seek their own artistic identity, independent of prevailing American models."  Pawel Brodowski ('Jazz Forum')