Adam Makowicz

This is a reissue of the second album recorded for the small German label Spiegelei by the ensemble headed by Polish Jazz saxophonist / violinist / composer Michal Urbaniak. The ensemble included also Urbaniak's wife at the time, vocalist Urszula Dudziak, keyboardist Adam Makowicz, bassist Roman Dylag, drummer Czeslaw Bartkowski and Yugoslav percussionist Branislav Kovacev. The album includes seven tracks, all composed by Urbaniak. This album has several similarities to the live album Urbaniak and his ensemble recorded in 1973 in Poland, released as part of the legendary Polish Jazz series (Vol. 36) and entitled "In Concert", which in retrospect was one of Polish Jazz most significant and pivotal recordings and a giant milestone towards the discovery of Jazz-Rock Fusion on the local scene.

Polish jazz trumpeter honored for his long history as a major contributor to European jazz.
Jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stańko began his tenure as a major force in European free jazz in the early '60s with the formation of the quartet Jazz Darins in 1962 with Adam Makowicz. From 1963 to 1967 he played with Krzysztof Komeda in a group that revolutionized European jazz and made an impact across the Atlantic as well. Stańko also put in time with Andrzej Trzaskowski in the mid-'60s before leading his own quintet from 1968 to 1973. The Tomasz Stańko Quintet, which included Muniak and Zbigniew Seifert, garnered considerable critical acclaim, especially for their tribute to Komeda entitled Music for K…

Polish violinist Michal Urbaniak’s recording Fusion was aptly named. Riding a wave of jazz-rock music, Urbaniak produced this enigmatic recording at once lyrical and noisy. Fusion is made up of seven originals, six of Urbaniak’s and one of keyboard player Wojciech Karolak. This music is percussion intensive and keyboard heavy. All compositions are very Rock oriented. Urbaniak’s violin is played with a variety of electronic modifications including phase shift and wah-wah. Urbaniak’s compositions contain Eastern European influences. The effect of these Eastern European tonalities results in an influence similar to Katchaturian scales in John Coltrane’s “sheets of sound”. This disc would be of interest to the generation following Urbaniak’s, listeners who are listening backwards to see where today’s music originally came from.

Recorded 31 May, 24 October 1973 in Polish Radio, Warsaw.
Although not as well-known in the West as his countrymen Adam Makowicz, Tomasz Stanko, and Michal Urbaniak, Wróblewski has been one of the dominant figures in Polish jazz since the late '60s. Wróblewski played clarinet, tenor sax, and piano while studying agriculture at a Polish technical college; his first professional experience was with Krzysztof Komeda in 1956. Beginning in 1958, he studied at the Higher School of Music in Krakow. That year, he was chosen by George Wein and Marshall Brown to play in the International Youth Band, which performed at the Brussels World's Fair and the Newport Jazz Festival…

Two-time ARIA Award-winning Naarm / Melbourne-based psychedelic jazz outfit Mildlife present their much-anticipated third studio album, Chorus. Following 2020’s Automatic and 2017’s Phase, Chorus arrives as Mildlife’s most optimistic record, serving as a sonic testament to the band’s unwavering adoration for the beguiling realms of 70s psychedelic and cosmic sounds. “Chorus is about a coming together of disparate elements. Not in some sort of utopian aesthetic where everything works perfectly, but in the natural flow and state of things,” shares the band’s Jim Rindfleish. “It’s about cosmic compatibility and chemistry: what makes things work? Not just what makes the band work, but what makes good music, art or love? It’s the rhythm of nature”.