Product Description

"An innovator with a complex of tradition, romanticist expressing himself in the contemporary idiom, poet of piano - this was Krzysztof Komeda, one of those musicians who have widened the essence of jazz"*. In his short life (until untimely death, after a tragic accident in Hollywood at the age of 38), Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969) wrote music for more than 60 films, including classics of the Polish cinema by the Academy Award winners Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda. It was Polanski who gave Komeda his first commission in 1957, and used his music in almost all of his films over the next decade; inviting him to Hollywood in 1967 to score his American film debut, "Rosemary's Baby." According to Polanski himself, the popular and critical success of "Rosemary's Baby" owed much to Komeda's empathy and creative imagination. Even though Komeda's film scores quite often made use of Jazz and improvisation, it is the music he wrote to perform and record as a pianist with his own jazz groups, especially 1965 recording of "Astigmatic," that helped to develop a uniquely European (in structure and lyrical content, especially) style in jazz composition. Their musical roots in Poland, founders of KOMEDA PROJECT - pianist ANDRZEJ WINNICKI and saxophonist KRZYSZTOF MEDYNA toured Europe extensively during the 1980's with their original jazz group Breakwater. The group was featured at European jazz festivals, won an international jazz competition (best group and best instrumentalist - Krzysztof Medyna), and was broadcast on television and radio. Later, Medyna also performed and recorded as a member of the group In/Formation, frequently touring side by side (on a double bill) with ECM recording artist, trumpeter Tomasz Stanko who worked on all of Krzysztof Komeda's Polish soundtracks from 1964 onwards and was the composer's closest musical associate and band member from 1963 until 1968. In the United States, Winnicki and Medyna revived their original group during the 90's under the name Electric Breakwater. Electric Breakwater's CD "In the Bush", released in 2001, with Mark Egan on bass and Rodney Holmes on drums is presently available on .com. Trumpeter Russ Johnson, a Manhattan School of Music graduate, is an active performer in the jazz, improvised, and contemporary classical music scenes throughout the U.S. and abroad. In addition to leading his own groups, Russ is currently touring as a member of Lee Konitz' new nonet and the Steve Swallow/Ohad Talmor 'L'Histoire du Clochard' sextet. In addition, Russ has performed with a long list of musical heavyweights including: Kenny Wheeler, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Richie Beirach, Mark Ribot, Charles Earland, David Liebman, Joe Maneri, The Jazz Passengers, Oliver Lake, Brian Blade, Tony Malaby and Mat Maneri as well as Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry, Michael Bublé, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and Aretha Franklin A native of Canada, bassist Michael Bates is a graduate of the University of Toronto and has performed with Quinsin Nachoff, Chris Speed, Matt Moran, Michael Blake, Gerald Cleaver, Dan Weiss, Jeff Davis, Kevin Turcotte, George Garzone, John Stetch, Scott Dubois, Michael Attias and Michael Sarin. He has toured Europe, Hong Kong, China, Korea and Japan and performed across the United States and across Canada. Michael Bates is on faculty at the Banff Centre of the Arts as Program Coordinator of the International Jazz Workshop where he works with the artistic director, Dave Douglas. Drummer Dave Anthony also holds a degree from Manhattan School of Music. He began his professional career touring and recording with Oscar Award winning Tan Dun, composer of 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' movie score. He has recorded and/or performed with Glen Burtnick (songwriter/Styx), 'Electric Breakwater' and Broadway's 'Swing' and "Moving out". Bringing Krzysztof Komeda's wondrous music back to life is what KOMEDA PROJECT is all about. "He expanded the range of expression in jazz by adding a dramatized lyricism - it's force reaching the intensity of ecstatic and mystical experience."* It deserves not to be forgotten. *from Adam Slawinski's liner notes to Krzysztof Komeda's "Astigmatic".

Review

Among music fans, jazz people typically possess an exaggerated need for new stimuli. To hear something that has not been heard before is their endless quest. They are hereby directed to Crazy Girl by the Komeda Project. Not that this music is radical. But its basis in the compositions of Krzysztof Komeda, and its three soloists - gifted but little-known American outcat and two even less known Polish heavyweights - make Crazy Girl notably fresh.

Krzysztof Komeda had a brief, remarkable life. He died in 1969 at 38 from injuries sustained in a fall while making a movie with Roman Polanski. By then he had become the founding father of the modern jazz movement in Poland. He had also written music for over 40 films, including all of Polanski's output from Knife in the Water to Rosemary's Baby.
The Komeda Project is dedicated to bringing Krzysztof Komeda's wondrous music back to life. Komeda's unique themes, with their dramatized Slavic lyricism, give this album its character. Ballada (from Knife in the Water) and Kattorna (from the film of that title by Danish director Hening Carlssen), like all great melodies heard for the very first time, are both startling and familiar and, in Komeda's case, disquieting.

But this is a jazz album, and what matters is how these players make Komeda's music their own. Russ Johnson's trumpet work is creative and diverse. He can embody Komeda's poignancy (Crazy Girl) or bump over the top of his forms (Kattorna), or define, then freely smear the outlines of Komeda songs (Ballada). Krzysztof Medyna is a powerful, hair-rising reed player. On Crazy Girl he is ejected straight up and flies. Pianist Andrzej Winnicki plays solos made of sudden shifts that all cohere, and is a blocky, confrontational accompanist.

For all its liberating blowing, Crazy Girl is true to its cinematic premise. Even the boldest solos occur in narrative context, along an arc that moves through tension and release and continuously varied thematic allusion to culmination. The entire album makes an arc, because it ends with Komeda's most famous piece, Sleep Safe and Warm, the main theme from Rosemary's Baby. But we are given only a minute of its omnious lullaby, because it is only a tiny fraction of what Krzysztof Komeda was about.
Performance: **** --Thomas Conrad/Stereophile Magazine

Crazy Girl by the Komeda Project, a quintet founded by pianist Andrzej Winnicki and saxophonist Krzysztof Medyna, is a very exciting project. It aims to bring the music of Krzysztof Komeda, its beauty, emotional intensity and logical yet dramatic structure, to a wider audience. While the jazz ethos is universal, Komeda's music distills the essence of Poland and pours it into the jazz bottle. Widely acclaimed as one of the prime creators of modern Polish, if not European jazz, Komeda's relatively short carrer had an enormous impact that is still being felt.

The excitement, energy and the logical yet free structure of Komeda's work is readily apparent in the arrangements and playing. While Winnicki has looked at the scores, these tracks are not meant to be museum pieces, but rather a reaction in the present to the very core of Komeda's music. If you are familiar with any of the earlier generations, the Komeda-ness of these performances will be readily apparent.

Johnson is not trying to sound like Stanko, but rather pours himself into the themes and plays with fire and controlled abandon. Medyna also does not sound like Zbigniew Namyslowski, the original alto saxophonist, but he is extremely exciting and also plays on the edge. Komeda was not a particularly strong piano soloist, but rather controlled the proceedings from the bench; Winnicki straddles the piano's original role with very fine soloing. Anthony and Bates are truly locked and drive the band sharply.

Crazy Girl is a wonderful introduction to the musical world of Krzysztof Komeda. Highly recommended. --Budd Kopman/allaboutjazz.com

Even amongst the many engaging, skillfully-executed projects that cross our desk, it's rare to discover something as unexpectedly compelling as this. Co-founded by Polish-by-way-of-New-York pianist Andrzej Winnicki, the Komeda Project jazz quintet pays homage to the late Krzysztof Komeda.
On the group's latest release, Crazy Girl, Andrzej's arrangements of Komeda's works are sophisticated and engaging, bringing to mind the warm vibe of such classic recordings as Kind of Blue; and Blues and the Abstract Truth ... and the entire group's musicianship remains exceptional throughout. --Michael Gallant/Keyboard Magazine