Komeda Leszek Mozdzer with Lars Danielsson

• 1Svantetic03:32
• 2Sleep Safe and Warm06:22
• 3Ballad for Bernt04:16
• 4The Law and The Fist10:53
• 5Night-time, Daytime Requiem13:36
• 6Cherry03:52
• 7Crazy Girl05:48
• 8Moja Ballada02:52
• Total Runtime51:11

Info for Komeda

One Polish musical icon pays homage to another; Możdżer’s first solo outing for ACT sees the country’s most popular jazz musician offering his own reverential but original take on the music of the legendary pianist and film composer, Krzysztof Komeda, best known for his Roman Polanski soundtracks.

For many years, jazz and classical music trod a common path of mutual enrichment, with Bartók to Stokowski and Horowitz on the one hand, and Art Tatum, George Gershwin and even Benny Goodman on the other. This relationship was fractured by the break in culture caused by the Second World War, and despite several attempts – for example, the “Third Stream” movement at the end of the 1950s – it took a long time before the exchange between the two most important trends in art music became matter of course again. If jazz is today once again regarded as the “second classical music”, it is because of artists such as the Polish pianist Leszek Możdżer.

The classically trained pianist was born in 1971. While he didn’t discover jazz himself until he was 18 years old, he quickly made a name for himself and is today celebrated like a pop star in Poland, where he has played with the country’s most important jazz musicians including Tomasz Stanko and Michal Urbaniak. Since 1994 until the present day he has been voted, almost without exception, the best pianist of the country by the Polish Jazzforum magazine. Możdżer has also made a name for himself internationally, particularly alongside Swedish bassist Lars Danielsson whose music is similarly dedicated to melody. He described Możdżer as, “the ideal pianist for me” and recorded both his last albums – “Pasodoble” (2007) and “Tarantella” (2009) – with him. American jazz icons such as Pat Metheny, Lester Bowie and Archie Shepp are also vocal in their appreciation of his work.

If Możdżer is today regarded as the most important discovery in young Polish jazz and as one of the most exceptional pianists of the international scene, it is not least because of his pioneering style of crossing the border between classical music and jazz. He is the great romantic amongst Europe’s jazz pianists, having founded his reputation with improvisations on themes from Frédéric Chopin. Since then, his sparkling music and unrivalled technique clings to lyrical melodies, full of emotion. He also proves himself to be an exceptional improviser, paying close attention to chromaticism, harmony and particularly the “ornamentation” of the music.

Leszek Możdżer uses his solo ACT debut as an opportunity to pay homage to the second great national hero of Polish music (next to Chopin), Krzysztof Komeda. The jazz pianist and film score composer died in 1969 aged just 38, but by this time had written, amongst other things, the soundtracks for almost all of Roman Polanski’s films. “Komeda is one of my idols,” says Możdżer. “I can still remember the first time I heard his music, it was incredible, this great depth and wisdom that appeared. Over time, I found out more about his biography and immense dedication to music. One of my favourite quotes by him is, ‘Live for music, not from music.’” The listener can hear that Możdżer’s Komeda project has undergone a long maturing period. “The album’s producer, Paweł Potoroczyn, tried to get me into the studio with it for six years. He’s only managed it now. I just didn’t feel ready for it earlier.”

The kinship between Możdżer and Komeda is evident from the first track. The opener, “Svantetic”, is to a certain extent an acknowledgement on behalf of both artists to the Swedish writer Svante Foerster, who Komeda invited on his first Swedish tour. At that time Stockholm was a vibrant cultural centre and Komeda met musicians like Rune Carlsson and Bernt Rosengren there, both of whom became important artistic partners for him. Możdżer also dedicated the “Ballad For Bernt” to the saxophonist Rosengren.

While the album’s repertoire comprises solely of compositions by Komeda, Możdżer emphasises how much freedom he still had despite this, because he was able to select the pieces and put them together in any way he wanted. He also had freedom with regards to the interpretation, explaining that “Komeda leaves so much freedom for the improvisational musician. If you look at the notes you can say that Komeda regards the interpreter as a partner. He trusts him and I can see that in the compositions.”

This is a trust that Możdżer more than justifies and he revels in lyrical finesses. But he also allows space for more sombre sounds, as on Rosemary’s Baby from the Polanski film of the same name, based on the piece “Sleep Safe And Warm”. On “Crazy Girl” he launches an attack with an offbeat rhythm and jazz harmony. “I play the piece much slower than Komeda usually did as I discovered that this releases the unbelievable beauty of its melody, the simplicity yet intelligent form which shows Komeda’s genius. We all love crazy girls but the way I play it, it becomes the piece for the girl you love.”

Leszek Możdżer has always thought carefully about how he approaches music, and on Komeda he has created a series of small masterpieces which go far beyond any pigeonholed way of thinking – and offer a musical romance for jazz fans as well as lovers of classical music.

Leszek Możdżer, piano

Recorded by Grzegorz Czachor at Leszek Możdżer’s studio in Wroclaw, March 8-11, 2011
Mix by Grzegorz Czachor, Mastering by Tadeusz Mieczkowski
Piano: Fazioli model 212, tuned by Marcin Piechowski
Executive Producer: Paweł Potoroczyn
An Office of Vital Records Production
Produced by Sylwia Kicka, Outside Music

Pianist Leszek Możdżer, born 1971, is regarded as the most important discovery in Polish jazz during the past 10 years. It is particularly the smooth interweaving of the sound aesthetic and playing culture of classical music with the openness and energy of jazz, the rhythmic and melodic qualities of his playing and his breathtaking technical skills combined with the highest musicality which form the hallmark of his music. He is one of the most famous and successful musicians in his home country and enjoys the attention and public recognition usually reserved only for popstars. His albums regularly reach gold and platinum, thousands go to his concerts and there is hardly any important award which Leszek Możdżer has not won. At the same time he is also internationally acclaimed, has toured through all European countries as well as in the USA, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Brazil, Canada, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Uruguay and Chile. There are, meanwhile, more than 100 albums featuring Leszek Możdżer including many under his own name.

Born in 1971, he has been playing the piano since the age of five. He has covered every stage of the formal education until graduating from the Gdańsk Academy of Music named after Stanisław Moniuszko in 1996. He became interested in jazz relatively late - in the last grade - when he was 18. He was introduced into jazz in the band of Emil Kowalski, a clarinet player, but his proper start took place at the first rehearsal with a band called Miłość (Love) back in 1991. From then on, the young pianist has been receiving some of Poland’s most prestigious music awards. Among them the „Krzysztof Komeda Prize“ by the Foundation of Polish Culture (1992), the 1st prize at the International Jazz Improvisation Competition in Katowice in 1994, the most important Polish music award “Fryderyk 1998” as Jazz Musician of the Year, the Prize of the Mayor of the City of Gdańsk for outstanding artistic achievement (1999) and the Grand Prize of the Polish Culture Foundation 2006 for outstanding performances promoting Polish Culture. In the poll organized among the readers of the Polish jazz magazine “Jazz Forum”, Leszek Możdżer was voted the most promising musician of the year in 1993 and 1994, as the musician of the year in 1995 and 1996 and as best pianist for 14 years in a row – from 1994 – 2008.

Besides working with the band Miłość, Leszek Możdżer later became a member of the Zbigniew Namysłowski Quartet. On many occasions he recorded film music with Zbigniew Preisner and also regularly works with Jan Kaczmarek, polish composer working in LA, while recording music score (for 20th Century Fox and Mira Max). He has been invited to perform jointly with the celebrities of Polish jazz, such as Tomasz Stańko, Janusz Muniak, Michał Urbaniak, Anna Maria Jopek, Adam Pierończyk and Piotr Wojtasik and has also worked with acclaimed international musicians, including Arthur Blythe, Buster Williams, Billy Harper, Joe Lovano, Pat Metheny and Archie Shepp.

Improvisations on the themes by Fryderyk Chopin have further strengthened Leszek Możdżers position and ranked him among the most outstanding individualities and virtuosos of the European jazz. His theatrical projects are also remarkable, among others "Hair - love, rock musical" at the Musical Theatre in Gdynia, "Tango with Lady M." at the Polish Theatre of Dance in Poznań, "4.48 Psyhosis" at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, "Rewizor" at the Teatr Dramatyczny, Warsaw and "Mandarynki i Pomarańcze" at the Teatr Muzyczny, Wrocław. Leszek Możdżer also created the music for the first in the world trans-opera based on Wiliam Shakespeare : "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The premiere was held in Musical Theatre in Gdynia in October 2001.

On 26th August 2006 Leszek Możdżer was featured in the final concert of Pink Floyd guitarist and singer David Gilmour in Danzig. The mega music event with more than 50,000 spectators in the port of Danzig was recorded on the live CD / DVD “David Gilmour – Live in Gdansk”.

On 21st of August 2010 Leszek Możdżer performed in Gdansk on three stages for 22 000 people in a project called “Możdżer +” together with Marcus Miller, John Scofield, Lars Danielsson, Steve Swallow, Bill Stewart, Naná Vasconcelos, Zohar Fresco, the Aukso Chamber Orchestra directed by Marek Moś and numerous other guests. Besides numerous solo concerts, Leszek Możdżer’s most important current projects include particularly his Możdżer / Danielsson / Fresco trio and the duo with Swedish bassist and ACT artist Lars Danielsson. Leszek Możdżer’s first two albums with ACT also featured this line up.

Pasodoble (ACT 9458-2), released in 2007, was an important milestone for Leszek Możdżer’s prominence outside his home country of Poland and was highly acclaimed by the international press. Fono Forum described the line up as, “a dream team of intuitive interplay”; Great Britain’s most famous jazz journalist Stuart Nicholson was highly impressed with the “clarity of thought and execution rarely encountered in jazz“ and the French Jazzman / Jazz Magazine named Pasodoble as the album of the year. In Poland the album reached gold and platinum.

Tarantella (ACT 9477-2) followed in 2009 and is the continuation of the highly successful collaboration between Lars Danielsson and Leszek Możdżer – this time with an expanded line up which also includes trumpeter Mathias Eick, guitarist John Parricelli and drummer Eric Harland. Tarantella reached gold in Poland and, in Germany, an overwhelming majority of the listeners of NDR Play Jazz voted the CD as album of the year. The critics were also euphoric – Jazzthetik wrote: “artistically performed chamber jazz full of diverse timbres with a previously unheard richness of melody and unmistakable tendency to classical music.” Jazz thing added: “compositions which are intoxicated with melodies, dream-like, full of yearning, weightlessly dancing and fearlessly beautiful.”

Leszek Możdżer’s new album, Komeda (ACT 9516-2), which will be released on 24th June is his first under his own name with ACT. He uses the recording as an opportunity to pay homage to his idol Krzysztof Komeda. The jazz pianist and film music composer who died in 1969 aged only 38 years, is regarded as the second national hero of Polish music alongside Chopin and wrote, amongst other things, the soundtracks to almost all of Roman Polanski’s films which were filmed during his lifetime.

Możdżer’s Komeda project has undergone a long maturing period. The album’s producer Paweł Potoroczyn, tried to get him in the studio for this project for six years but Możdżer only feels ready for it now. The album’s entire repertoire comprises solely of compositions by Komeda although Możdżer emphasises how much freedom he still had, despite this, also because he was able to select the pieces and put them together in any way he wanted. He also had freedom with regards to the interpretation: “Komeda leaves so much freedom for the improvisational musician. If you look at the notes you can say that Komeda regards the interpreter as a partner. He trusts him and I can see that in the compositions.” In this way, many small masterpieces have been created which go far beyond any pigeonholed way of thinking and offer a musical romance for lovers of classical music as well as jazz fans.

Booklet for Komeda