2023-11-21 02:03:27
November 21, 2023 Today at 03:00
In Flagey next Friday, the Polish Jazz Night opens a window on jazz from the East. Demonstration with two original groups, EABS and Product May Content, perfectly in tune with the times.
We know the highland Poland of culture, particularly musical and, in this area, jazz is there, bubbling. We want it as proof the presence of star pianist Marcin Wasilewski a trio et opening of the next Brussels Jazz Festival, January 11. But before that, Flagey devotes an entire evening to Polish jazzmenled by EABS as headliners, with Product May Content opening, this Friday, November 24.
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“EABS is one of the bands that has a very current sound. They play electronic music in an instrumental way, a bit like Stuff.”
Maarten Van Rousselt
Programmer in Flagey
Jazz and Poland are an old story that begins in the 1920s. After being put under suffocation between 1939 and the end of the 1940s, the blue note became a bearer of freedom under the Soviet yoke. Poland’s entry into modern jazz is marked by pianist Krzysztof Komeda and the album “Astigmatic”, his masterpiece, as well as the soundtrack to the film “Rosemary’s Baby”, by Roman Polanski (1968). Subsequently, Adam Makowicz, pianist, and Tomasz Stańko, trumpeter, carried the colors of jazz Poland high.
“A very current sound”
Nowadays, Polish jazz musicians are fully immersed in modernity. “EABS is one of the groups that has a very current sound,” explains Maarten Van Rousselt, programmer at Flagey. “They play electronic music in an instrumental way, a bit like Stuff.” Founded in 2011 by some young people from Wroclaw following musical studies, Electro Acoustic Beat Session always wanted to pay homage to African-American culture, from jazz to hip-hop, according to the concept of “deconstruction-reconstruction” which is dear to them.
Full screen view It’s “2061” that EABS is presenting on the Flagey stage on Friday. The connection with the European avant-garde, which blossomed in south-east London, is obvious. ©Ola Bodnarvs
Deconstructing to better reconstruct is what EABS applied to the work of Sun Ra, the great enlightenment of the 1970s. The result, “Discipline of Sun Ra” (2020), released on the Astigmatic label – in reference to Komeda’s masterpiece – is breathtaking. Still with their heads in the stars, the Wroclaw quintet did it once more last year with “2061”, album inspired by the year of the return of Halley’s comet!
Londres-Wroclaw
It’s “2061” that EABS is presenting on the Flagey stage on Friday. The connection with the European avant-garde, which blossomed in south-east London, is obvious. The group is part of the lineage of Comet Is Coming ou d’Ezra Collective. Moreover, the London saxophonist Ed Cawthorne, known under the sweet name of Tenderlonious, came several times lending a hand to EABS in the studio, thus recognizing their talent.
“We always tend to look at Anglo-Saxon jazz, but in Polish jazz as in that of the whole region, there are very interesting things happening.”
Maarten Van Rousselt
Programmer in Flagey
Before this quintet with its massive sound, Polish Jazz Night opens with Product May Containa trio with a certain humor and original composition: vibraphone, double bass, percussion. Product May Contain caught the ear of Maarten Van Rousselt during the Crossroads festival, in Ostrava, Czechia. For the Flagey programmer, this very young trio is characterized by “a very fresh, very intelligent sound, standing out from the crowd”.
In the East, something new
“We always tend to look at Anglo-Saxon jazz,” analyzes Maarten Van Rousselt, “but in Polish jazz, as in that of the whole region, very interesting things are happening. It is our role to make jazz known throughout Europe“. The representatives of Warsaw are aware of this, since the evening is in collaboration with the Polish Institute of Brussels, namely the cultural department of the embassy. “The Poles are very active,” rejoices the Flagey programmer, “a bit like the Goethe-Institut for Germany, they are quick to support their artists“.
Polish Jazz Night, Friday November 24 in Flagey, Brussels.
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