Simple Acoustic Trio - Habanera (2000)

About Simple Acoustic Trio I do not have to write extensively because it is the rare case in polish jazz of artists that are equally well recognized in Poland as abroad. They started to play with Tomasz Stańko while in their teens and thus coached by him reached over the years the level of musicianship that may be described only as stellar. Internationally they become known first as Simple Acoustic Trio which was also the title of their first record for ECM but since their second album for this company titled January and issued a year ago they changed name to Marcin Wasilewski Trio. Marcin Wasilewski is pianist and composer of most music on their albums, Sławomir Kurkiewicz plays on double bass while Michał Miśkiewicz on drums.

So fortunately many poeple abroad love the music of this trio but they may not know that they started recording in trio format long before their ECM contract. Actually their first disc for polish record companies was issued in 1995 with the music of Krzysztof Komeda but among those all early albums this one coming from 2000 seems special to me as it may arguably be the best of ALL their recordings up-to-date. In Poland this album became legendary but because it was done for small, polish recording company Not Two and is not so easy available as discs from ECM it is regrettably almost unknown to foreign audiance.

As I mentioned Marcin Wasilewski Trio does not need much marketing so let me direct a spotlight on Not Two company for which they recorded this album as it is excellent example of the role of polish small records brands in renaissance of polish jazz nowadays. Not Two was created by Mariusz Winiarski who by education is matallurgist engineer but his heart since 60ties belongs to jazz. In 1982 he started record shop and in 1990 tothether with his friend they set up one of first private record companies in Poland after the fall of communism in 1989 called GOWI. It became very succesful because many important albums of yass movement, new revolutionary torrent in polish jazz of mid 90ties, were recorded for this company. Like for example the legendary albums of polish group Love (Miłość) featuring great american trumpeter Lester Bowie. However in 1998 Winiarski went solo because he wanted to concentrate more on avant-garde, free and improvised side of jazz. GOWI still exists but is focused more on mainstream jazz while Not Two attained over years even more success than former Winiarski's enterprise. In 2005 in Downbeat magazine rankings of the best recording labels worldwide Not Two Records was listed among top five. Speaking shortly people like Mr Winiarski to the same extent as musicians are responsible for creating the phenomenon we may call Polish Jazz.