1 	Glimmer Of Hope 	
2 	Vashkar 	
3 	Cadenza 	
4 	Fading Sorrow 	
5 	Arco 	
6 	Stray Cat Walk 	
7 	L’Amour Fou 	
8 	A Glimpse 	
9 	Vashkar (Var.) 	
10 	On The Other Side 	
11 	Old Hat

Bss – Sławomir Kurkiewicz
Drums – Michał Miśkiewicz
Piano – Marcin Wasilewski
Tenor Saxophone – Joe Lovano 

Like standing before a frozen lake as it becomes a palette for the morning sun, "Glimmer of Hope" ripens swiftly, deftly into an illuminating, direly-needed respite from the mourning that has besieged listeners. Ecstatically, it is just the preface to Arctic Riff's expansive beauty.

As if conjured from mist, pianist Marcin Wasilewski's contented, yet curious rubato, ellipses through a few random tonalities, its sole purpose being to create an active space for his long trusted rhythm section—bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz—along with guest/co-leader, saxophonist Joe Lovano, to create without hindrance, but with restraint. And it is that cultured reserve wherein each player is entrusted to reveal, in the shimmer of a thousand diamonds at your feet, that all our potential is well within our grasp.

Recorded in August 2019, Arctic Riff evinces pure proof that poets and artists imagine and interpret the future because their chosen manner of expression is so rooted to the voice of humanity's past. A gifted joint effort, Arctic Riff speaks in the glorious language of ECM piano trios long cherished and too numerous to list here. "Glimmer of Hope" displays a traditionally agile soulfulness as Lovano's profound, reverberant voice rises above the trio's inventive grace. Both versions of Carla Bley's "Vashikar" finds the whole ensemble probing Bley's subversively thematic implications as well as their own interior dialogues.

The spontaneous "Cadenza" swells from a wealth of scampering whispers—Miskiewicz, Kurkiewicz, and Lovano—into a solid union of spectral designs which Wasilewski melodically takes command of. "Fading Sorrow" is an evocatively atmospheric thumbnail of the music the trio has created since its high school inception in 1993. Its many gorgeous tonal textures become an exquisite playground for Lovano to play in. "Arco" emanating from Kurkiewicz, of course, conjures darkness and light, with Lovano responding to both with vibrant empathy.Two miniature visitations, the bluesy "Stray Cat Waltz" and shape-shifting "A Glimpse" display how focused and open the four can be. Lovano's "On the Other Side" posits a vigorous exchange of ideas between various trio formats and somehow wonderfully sets up "Old Hat," Wasilewski's closing old-school ballad referencing Lovano's love of vintage headgear. ---Mike Jurkovic, llaboutjazz.com

Po raz pierwszy zagrali razem w roku 2006. Na Bielskiej Zadymce Jazzowej doszło do pewnych nieoczekiwanych roszad. Joe Lovano stanął przed nagłą decyzją wyboru polskiego zespołu. Spośród trzech formacji wytypował trio Marcina Wasilewskiego. Trzynaście lat później to Marcin Wasilewski wskazał na Joe’ego Lovano. Ten podjął wyzwanie i tak, w sierpniu ubiegłego roku, we francuskim studiu La Buissonne w Pernes-les-Fontaines, powstał album „Arc­tic Riff”.

Jedenaście utworów: cztery podpisane przez cały kolektyw, cztery przez Wasilewskiego, jeden przez Lovano i dwa sygnowane nazwiskiem Carli Bley. Dwa razy Bley, a właściwie raz, ponieważ mamy tu do czynienia z dwiema wersjami tematu Carli Vashkar. To rzecz należąca do jazzowego kanonu, podejmowana przez największych, po raz pierwszy pokazana na legendarnej płycie Paula Bleya „Footloose”z 1963 roku. Oba utrwalone tu warianty uświadamiają nam: po pierwsze – jak inspirująca i ponadczasowa jest twórczość Carli Bley, po drugie – z jakim formatem improwizatorów mamy tu do czynienia. Vashkar jest niczym papierek lakmusowy – każda z wersji otrzymuje tu swój odrębny feeling, swoje tempo, rytm, w każdej zawiązuje się odmienna interakcja. A właśnie ta ostatnia stanowi o kondycji jazzu, pokazuje jego odrębność i prawdę. A Miśkiewicz, Kurkiewicz, Wasilewski i Lovano pokazują prawdziwą klasę.\\Cadenza, Stray Cat Walk albo A Glimpse – to kolejne świetne przykłady spontanicznej kolektywnej drogi, którą podąża cały kwartet. Bez wyjątku. Sound, który uzyskuje na swoim saksofonie Lovano, tłumaczy wszystko. To ten Lovano, którego znamy z formacji Trio Tapestry (z Marilyn Crispell przy fortepianie i Carmenem Castaldim za bębnami). Doświadczony, poszukujący, bawiący się czasem i harmoniami, zamyślony, medytujący. Temat Wasilewskiego L’amour Fou to już chemicznie czysty jazzowy drive, grają wyjadacze, stare jazzowe lisy. Mniej trafiają do mnie eleganckie ballady pianisty – otwierająca album Glimmer of Hope i wieńcząca całość Old Hat (dedykowana saksofoniście, który przecież znany jest z zamiłowania do nakryć głowy w stylu vintage).

Dobrze się stało, że dopiero teraz, po trzynastu latach od owego pierwszego wspólnego grania na Bielskiej Zadymce, Marcin Wasilewski nagrał płytę z Lovano. Myślę, że trafił na bardzo ciekawy moment w artystycznym życiu saksofonowego mędrca (bo chyba tak możemy dziś mówić o tym saksofoniście). W tych nagraniach nie czuje się między nimi żadnego dystansu. Bo przecież jazz go nie znosi. My też nie. Dlatego tak ciężko nam teraz bez jamów, koncertów i festiwali. Keep buying records! ---Przemek Psikuta, http://jazzforum.com.pl

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01 Spark of life
02 Sudovian dance
03 Night train to you
04 Austin
05 Actual Proof
06 Three Reflections

Marcin Wasilewski - piano
Slawomir Kurkiewicz - double bass
Michal Miskiewicz - drums
+
Joakim Milder - tenor saxophone

Recorded in Jazzbaltica Niendorf, 4.7.2015.

The Marcin Wasilewski Trio is one of the brightest stars of the Polish jazz scene, recognised for their unique talent in blending tradition with contemporary sound. The Marcin Wasilewski Trio is considered one of the most acclaimed and unique jazz formations of its generation, and it has garnered recognition in its native Poland as well as abroad.

The Trio is present on the jazz scene from the beggining of the 1994, first as Simple Acoustic Trio, and from 2008 as Marcin Wasilewski Trio travelling around all continents to present their music. They were members of Tomasz Stanko Quartet for 15 years, the longest collaborators of Stanko.

They are ECM recording artists also as a Trio (‘Trio’ 2003, ‘January’ 2007 and ‘Faithful’ 2011 and „Spark Of Life” 2014).

They are not only known for their outstanding records with Tomasz Stanko for the prestigious ECM label, but also from working together with masters of improvisation such as Jan Garbarek, Gianluigi Trovesi, John Surman, Louis Sclavis, Arthur Blythe, Joe Lovano, Bernt Rosengren, Dino Saluzzi, Bobo Stenson, Anders Jormin, Manu Katche and Jon Christensen, just to name a few.

The leader, Marcin Wasilewski (piano), was nominated for the “Paul Acket Award” in 2009. This music prize is awarded annually to a young artist who has chosen his or her own way injazz music and hence deserves more recognition. The nominees are selected by an international committee of jazz critics. Paul Acket Award is associated with the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam. Another highlights of 2005 and 2011 was Down Beat Annual Critics Polls in which Wasilewski was listed as a „rising piano star”. --- ideejazz.ee

Bez dwóch zdań takie informacje lubimy przekazywać. Od czasu wydania albumu „Spark Of Life” (ECM Records/ Universal Music Polska) o triu Marcina Wasilewskiego jest głośniej. Już widzimy jak niektórzy zaprotestują widząc te słowa, grzmiąc, że przecież to najsłynniejszy polski zespół jazzowy, co więcej znany szerokiemu audytorium od dawna utrzymujący swoją wysoką pozycję niezachwianie. A na dodatek band nagradzany przez krytykę i co znacznie ważniejsze doceniony przez słuchaczy.

wszystko to prawda, ale od czasu albumu „Spark Of Life” Marcin Wasilewski Trio, nie tylko sięwszystkim podoba, ale także gra koncerty i gra je nie jako pojedyncze zdarzenia w roku kalendarzowym, ale jako trasy koncertowe, zarówno w Polsce, jak i za granicą. I są to trasy, którymi można i bardzo warto się chwalić.

Przełom ubiegłego i bieżącego roku był dla grupy Marcina Wasilewskiego szczególny. Bo jak inaczej powiedzieć o tym, że płyta w niecałe sześć tygodni od daty premiery pokryła się złotem, a przez osiem miesięcy istnienia w międzynarodowej sprzedaży, zdążyła zdobyć tak wiele nagród i wyróżnień. Od lauru Albumu Roku w ankiecie czytelników Jazz Forum i zwycięstwa w kategorii Akustyczny Zespół Roku, przez miejsce na najwyższym stopniu podium w rankingu krytyków portalu JazzSoul.pl, na podwójnym Fryderyku dla płyty i dla Marcina w plebiscycie na Artystę Roku w kategorii Jazz skonczywszy.

Dziś śmiało i uprzejmie możemy donieść, że sukces tria Marcina Wasilewskiego przekuwa się na bujne życie koncertowe. Na początku lipca była szansa obejrzeć i posłuchać go na festiwalu w Bukareszcie dla prawie dwu tysięcznej publiczności oraz na jednym z najważniejszych niemieckich festiwali Jazz Baltica. Latem zespół wystąpi również Łodzi, Krakowie, a jesienią m. in. podczas Enjoy Jazz Festiwal, na festiwalu w Takasaki w Japonii, na Madrid Jazz Festival oraz na koncertach w Austrii i Niemczech, a przede wszystkim na prestiżowym London Jazz Festival. --- jazzarium.pl

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1. January
2. The Cat
3. Balladyna
4. Song For Zurich
5. Cinema Paradiso
6. King Korn

Marcin Wasilewski - piano
Slawomir Kurkiewicz - bass
Michal Miskiewicz - drums

Salzau, July 4, 2008

Salzau, Germany. This edition of Germany’s Jazz Baltica Festival was billed as “The Battle of the Big Bands,” and included the Jazz Big Band Graz, the Bohuslan Big Band with Steve Swallow, the NDR Big Band directed by Maria Schneider, and The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Still, as good as some of their performances were, and some were indeed terrific, the highlights of the event might have been the shows by a couple of small groups: The Hank Jones trio with James Moody and Miguel Zenón Quartet. And their performances stood as perfect bookends, celebrating both the history and, arguably, the future of jazz.

Held in and around the Salzau castle, a bucolic setting near Kiel in Northern Germany, July 1-5, the Jazz Baltica festival is part of the classical music-oriented Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. It was started in 1991 as part of a program of cultural cooperation between Baltic states and has since grown into one of the important stops in the jazz summer circuit in Europe.

Because of the programming philosophy, over the years, the programs have been often set up as meeting places for artists from all over the world to work on one-of-a-kind projects with regional bands and players. Some of the musicians who have appeared at Jazz Baltica include Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, David Murray, Charles Lloyd but also Jan Garbarek, Lars Danielsson, Dino Saluzzi, E.S.T., Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Tomasz Stanko and Marcin Wasilewski. It’s a long, rich list. ---Fernando Gonzalez, irom.wordpress.com

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1.  Sudovian Dance
2.  Message in a bottle
3.  Largo
4.  Night train to you
5.  Spark of Life

Marcin Wasilewski - piano
Slawomir Kurkiewicz - double bass
Michal Miskiewicz - drums
Joakim Milder - tenor saxophone

Recorded at Tollhaus, Karlsruhe, on January 15, 2015

Two decades on, Marcin Wasilewski’s Polish piano trio shakes things up by inviting a guest into the fold, Swedish tenor saxophonist Joakim Milder, best known for his work with shared mentor Tomasz Stanko. But perhaps “shakes things up” is overstating the case, as Wasilewski and his compatriots habitually roll out one stately, even-tempered melody after the next, giving each plenty of simmer time before ultimately coming out the other side, regardless of what happens along the way, without having broken a sweat. (This is an ECM record, after all.)

What’s odd but laudable is just how little Milder seems to affect the trio’s overall process even while undeniably adding dimension. His own compositional contribution, “Still,” is a case in point: The core trio is locked from the launch into a simple, repetitive acoustic groove when Milder begins to blow about a half-minute in. Almost as if they don’t notice he’s there, Wasilewski and the rhythm section—double bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz—just keep doing what they’ve been doing. A full two minutes of gentle but hardy sax soloing passes before the pianist decides it’s time to try another fork in the road. Milder lays back and the others ride a while, but in the end they all return to where they started.

If that suggests something a bit on the turgid side, it’s really not; this quartet is so skilled at navigating its subtle transgressions that they rope you into their world effortlessly. Still, some real shaking it up would have been welcome: One of a few strange-bedfellow covers, the Police’s “Message in a Bottle” (others come from Herbie Hancock and Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby), kicks things up considerably when Kurkiewicz’s momentum-seeking solo inspires Wasilewski and Miskiewicz to push the velocity too. As grand as those other unruffled tunes are, a little more of the old razzle-dazzle would’ve given Spark of Life more spark. ---Jeff Tamarkin, jazztimes.com

Najnowszy album "Spark Of Life" polscy jazzmani zrealizowali z gościnnym udziałem szwedzkiego tenorzysty Joakima Mildera, z którym pojawili się na koncertach podczas jesiennej części polskiej trasy koncertowej. Zaledwie po sześciu tygodniach od premiery album uzyskał w Polsce status "Złotej Płyty". ---nck.pl

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01 – An Den Kleinen Radioapparat	play
02 – Night Train To You
03 – Faithful
04 – Mosaic
05 – Ballad Of The Sad Young Men	play
06 – Oz Guizos
07 – Song For ?swierk
08 – Woke Up In The Desert
09 – Big Foot
10 – Lugano Lake

Marcin Wasilewski – piano
Sławomir Kurkiewicz – double-bass
Michal Miskiewicz – drums

Long-running lineups are a rarity in jazz, but pianist Marcin Wasilewski's Polish trio have played together since they were students in the early 1990s, and their ability to catch and amplify each other's thoughts reflects this. Like their earlier ECM albums Trio and January, Faithful is predominantly pensive, but the trio are vivacious even while dreamwalking. The album displays the group's trademark urge to raid a variety of songbooks, splicing pieces by Hanns Eisler, Ornette Coleman, Paul Bley and Hermeto Pascoal with five originals. Of the latter, a softly pulsing, Brad Mehldau-like groove introduces the spare, poignant Night Train to You, and Mehldau's hypnotic, improv-building style is also invoked on the mid-tempo Mosaic. The Coleman title track is slowed to a reverie against a distant drum rumble, and Fran Landesman and Thomas Wolf's Ballad of the Sad Young Men is edited to a diaphanous pencil-sketch of a piece. Slow-starters, such as Song for Swirek, swell to ticking swingers, but only Bley's Big Foot – a gleeful, on-the-fly conversation for Wasilewski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz – really represents this trio's foot hard down on the gas. --- John Fordham, guardian.co.uk.

Trzecim albumem dla prestiżowej wytwórni ECM Records Marcin Wasilewski Trio pokazuje, że zespół tworzy własny, łatwo rozpoznawalny styl. Słychać historię jazzowej pianistyki: romantyczną nutę Billa Evansa, perkusyjne akordy Ahmada Jamala czy śpiewny ton Chicka Corei. Ale także słowiańską nostalgię tak chętnie kojarzoną z Chopinem. – Nie było takiego tria w historii polskiego jazzu, a oni są coraz lepsi – mówi o zespole Tomasz Stańko. Albumy "Trio" i "January" zyskały entuzjastyczne recenzje, a niemiecki magazyn "Jazzthing" nazwał Polaków "talentami stulecia". Od pierwszych dźwięków album "Faithful" urzeka brzmieniem.

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01. First Touch (4:12) 
02. Vignette (8:05) 
03. Cinema Paradiso (8:30) 
04. Diamonds And Pearls (5:47) 
05. Balladyna (6:44) 
06. King Korn (6:43) 
07. Cat (9:55) 
08. January (8:35) 
09. Young And Cinema (9:07) 
10. New York 2007 (2:45) 

Musicians:
Marcin Wasilewski - (piano) 
Slawomir Kurkiewicz - (double bass) 
Michal Miskiewicz - (drums)

With January, pianist Marcin Wasilewski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz step out of the benign shadow of their mentor, trumpeter Tomasz Stanko—on whose Soul Of Things (ECM, 2001), Suspended Night (ECM, 2003) and Lontano (ECM, 2005) they were featured accompanists—and confirm the mighty promise of their international solo debut, Trio (ECM, 2005).

Stanko's absence, felt from time to time on Trio, is noticed no more. On January—an album of warm and glowing lyric beauty which belies any chilly connotations suggested by its title—the trio are complete in themselves.

Appropriately, the disc heralds a re-branding of the group, which now goes by the moniker the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, rather than the egalitarian Simple Acoustic Trio of before. Wasilewski wrote four of the five originals, co-created the fifth, is on-mike in solo or comp-plus mode practically throughout, and is unmistakably the leader.

While Trio was a mixture of eight composed and five freely improvised pieces, there is just one group improv on January (the brief "New York 2007" which closes the set). There are five covers—Gary Peacock's Satie-esque "Vignette," Prince's pretty "Diamonds And Pearls," in which Wasilewski and Kurkiewicz share the melody, Ennio Morricone's "Cinema Paradiso," full of childlike wonder, Carla Bley's "King Korn," which brings a refreshingly acerbic breeze halfway through the disc, and Stanko's gorgeous "Balladyna," given a sumptuous, rubato treatment which (if you're prone to flashbacks) evokes the rippling, trippy, late 1960s astral jazz of saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane more than the work of another piano trio.

In the main understated, regally unhurried, and spacious—qualities which distinguished Trio—January regularly erupts into surging rhythmic intensity, when Kurkiewicz's resonant low-end bass and Miskiewicz's emphatic tympani-sticks on tom toms create waves of propulsion on which Wasilewski can surf. This month of January is a time of pause and reflection, but brings with it too intimations of spring and new growth.

While this lovely music comes out under Wasilewski's name, it is impossible to imagine it being made with any other bassist and drummer, so hard-wired are Kurkiewicz and Miskiewicz into a collective aesthetic. One day, hopefully long off, there may be partings, but until then, MWT are as perfect as it gets. ---Chris May, allaboutjazz.com

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01. Trio Conversation (Introduction) (2:38) 
02. Hyperballad (5:52) 
03. Roxana's Song (4:20) 
04. K.T.C. (6:11) 
05. Plaza Real (5:51) 
06. Shine (6:00) 
07. Green Sky (6:47) 
08. Sister's Song (5:57) 
09. Drum Kick (1:41) 
10. Free-Bop (4:29) 
11. Free Combinations For Three Instruments (4:51) 
12. Entropy (5:53) 
13. Trio Conversation (The End) (2:01)  

Marcin Wasilewski (piano) 
Slawomir Kurkiewicz (double bass) 
Michal Miskiewicz (drums)

Pianist Marcin Wasilewski, double-bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz, and drummer Michal Miskiewicz are best known as the young Polish musicians who have collaborated with trumpet legend Tomasz Stanko in recent years, in particular on Soul of Things and Suspended Night . But while Stanko has been a mentor since '93, first calling Wasilewski when he was only sixteen looking for a trio to support him when his regular rhythm section was unavailable, the three have also maintained a separate musical existence, releasing a number of acclaimed records in Poland as Simple Acoustic Trio. Now, with their first international release, they demonstrate lessons learned from Stanko, the kind of empathic interplay that only comes from a long-standing relationship, and, while clearly rooted in tradition, an unmistakable penchant for modernity.

Their youthful age and treatment of Bjork's "Hyberballad," which manages to evoke both the icy cool of the composer's native Iceland and a warmer melancholy, might lead some to place this trio in the same musical space as Esbjorn Svensson's Trio (E.S.T.) and The Bad Plus, but that would be a mistake. They might share a certain melodic bent with E.S.T. but are completely free of any pop sensibility and demonstrate a far less rigid approach, while their finesse and delicate subtlety makes them no companions of TBP. And while both of these groups run the risk of being so fashionable as to inherently date themselves, the music of Trio is rich and timeless.

Book-ending compositions by Bjork, Wayne Shorter, Stanko, and others are four free improvisations that are surprising in their implicit form. Abstract yet never without a sense of focus, these can only be performed by musicians who have played with each other for so long as to be completely confident in each others' instincts, with the ability to trust that whatever risk one takes, the others will be there with complete and unerring support.

Elsewhere the trio shows a remarkable ability to get inside a composition and find its true essence. Shorter's "Plaza Real" may have been a piece of brooding fusion when first released on Weather Report's Procession , but here the trio goes straight to its core, with a treatment that is light and lyrical. Stanko's "Green Sky," from Matka Joanna , retains the rubato freedom of the original yet feels altogether more optimistic. Wasilewski's own "Free-bop" is rooted in Paul Bley by way of Keith Jarrett, yet is more pensive; while "Sister's Song," co-written with Ewa Wasilewska, is possibly the most direct piece on the record, with a romanticism that evokes Lyle Mays' work but without the explicit virtuosity.

That's not to say Wasilewski, Kurkiewicz, and Miskiewicz aren't in possession of formidable technique; it's just that they never place style before substance, a quality that they must inherently possess but which has been nurtured through their association with Stanko. Trio is a refined, confident and mature recording from a group whose members are still in their mid-twenties. It's almost frightening to imagine where they'll be ten years from now. ---John Kelman, allaboutjazz.com

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