It is a truism that
for a serious composer it isn’t easy
to earn a living; it was particularly
hard for an independently minded, adventurous
composer who wrote ‘difficult’ music
to do so in communist Eastern Europe.
For Witold Lutosławski
one source of income, in the years after
the relative ‘thaw’ which followed the
death of Stalin, was the writing of
popular songs. Between 1957 and 1964
he wrote some thirty-six songs to popular
dance rhythms – chiefly waltzes, foxtrots
and tangos. The songs were published
under a pseudonym. At first that pseudonym
was to be ‘Bardos’ – but when he chose
that name he was unaware of the existence
of the Hungarian composer Lajos Bardos.
Obliged to choose another pseudonym
he settled on ‘Derwid’ – an interesting
choice. Derwid was one of the heroes
– a harp-playing hero - of a nationalistic
poem (Lilla Weneda)
by Julius Słowacki (1809-1849),
a revolutionary poet and advocate of
democracy.
The
‘Derwid’ songs were popular as performed
by Polish singers such as Rene Rolska,
Hanna Rek, Ludmila Jakubczak and Mieczysław
Fogg. Later, Lutosławski himself
was happy to forget about this
aspect of his work and the rediscovery
of the ‘Derwid’ songs only really happened
around the time of a series of events
arranged to mark the tenth anniversary
of his death. In 2004 at least two events
included performances of some of the
songs at concerts in Krakow and Warsaw.
The concert in Krakow featured the excellent
jazz singer Lora Szafran.
What we have here,
on this new CD from Acte Préalable
is, in effect, a series of jazz improvisations
on themes provided by some of Lutosławski’s
‘Derwid’ songs. For ‘straight’ performances
one would have to go to recordings such
as Rene Rolska’s ‘hit’ version of Nie
oczekuję dziś nikog. Indeed,
I wonder if this current CD, fascinating
as it is, doesn’t run the risk of falling
between several stools.
The instrumentalists
heard here are successful figures on
the Polish (and European) jazz scene.
The pianist Krzysztof Herdzin was, for
some time, the regular pianist of the
great Polish alto saxophone player Zbigniew
Namyslowski; he has worked as arranger
and pianist on at least one film score
by Zbigniew Preisner; he has written
arrangements for José Cura; he
has worked with the Polish coloratura
soprano Ewa Małas-Godlewska.
He led his own quintet on the 1995 album
Chopin (Polonia CD 056),
hard bop improvisations on Chopin which
are – unlikely as it sounds – oddly
satisfying. He was pianist and arranger
on Namyslowski’s album Mozart Goes
Jazz (Jazz Forum 019). The drummer,
Cezary Konrad, is an experienced musician
who has accompanied musicians such as
Namyslowski, the singer Urszula Dudziak
and Americans such as trumpeter Randy
Brecker. He has also worked with the
Sinfonia Varsova. The bass player and
the tenor saxophonist also have long
and distinguished CVs as jazz musicians.
And all this shows in the work of the
quartet – never less than highly competent,
occasionally inspired. Judged as a jazz
album, the work of this instrumental
quartet deserves high praise. There
are some excellent solos by Herdzin
and Podkowa, in particular. But the
relative weakness comes, I fear, in
the singing of Mariusz Klimek who seems
to be the driving force behind the project
but who, it seems to me, is simply not
a fully convincing jazz singer - even
if he did win first prize in the Jazz
Song Festival at Elblag in 1992. He
lacks the rhythmic flexibility, the
adventurousness, the quasi-instrumental
quality of voice. He doesn’t, to put
it at its simplest, swing. A shame,
because he can obviously sing. I am
not surprised to learn from the CD booklet
that he has been singing a good deal
of baroque repertoire.
It is difficult to
know quite what audience this CD has
in mind. The jazz audience will find
things to enjoy, but some of them will
perhaps share my reservations about
Mariusz Klimek’s singing. Lutosławski’s
tunes prove decent material for jazz
musicians to work with, but are really
no better, in this respect, than hundred
of others by less distinguished composers.
If one wants to hear Herdzin and his
colleagues simply playing jazz, there
are other
CDs on which they can be heard to better
effect. No doubt Lutosławski specialists
will want the CD, but they will perhaps
wish to hear the songs performed ‘straighter’?
The general ‘classical’ listener is
unlikely to find much here of lasting
interest.
So, an oddity. I have
enjoyed the CD – but then I am both
a follower of jazz and an enthusiast
for modern Polish music. Perhaps one
needs to be both to find this CD of
lasting interest, and the interest in
jazz is probably the more important
qualification.
Glyn Pursglove
for
details
Mariusz Klimek (vocal); Krzysztof Herdzin
(piano, keyboards, arrangements); Marek Podkowa
(tenor saxophone); Marcin Murawsli (bass guitar);
Cezary Konrad (percussion)