Berek

With a leader's own projects it often goes like this: the leader gets as much as he dares. Mateusz Smoczyński dared to make the most personal album of his career, and although he does not shy away from drawing on many musical sources, let it be said plainly that "Berek" is a purely personal statement. The quintet is simply Smoczyński's own backyard — private ground, onto which he has invited the pianist, brother and co-composer Jan Smoczyński, the guitarist Konrad Zemler, the bassist Wojciech Pulcyn and the drummer Michał Miśkiewicz. The responsibility rests on the leader's shoulders, but with musicians like these the risk of a stumble has been reduced to a minimum.
What can one expect from a Mateusz Smoczyński project? His versatility lets the listener's guesses and expectations multiply. In the case of "Berek" it is hard to say that we are witnessing the ordinary documentation of a single moment in the leader's artistic life; this is much closer to a summary of a longer stretch of his career on one disc. A comprehensive artistic résumé would be decidedly premature in Mateusz's case, yet what we hear is a musical account of the last — so intense — years of his path. We are given a complex story, full of references to bluegrass, to European classical music, to the singing lines of Polish folk music, to Seifert's characteristic phrases.
Happily, this is neither a plain synthesis of the leader's inspirations nor a patchwork of incoherent concepts. Being fluent in a language and being able to say something wise in it are, after all, two fundamentally different things. Smoczyński's individual voice and a superbly attuned band dominate the collage of genres, and the play with styles quickly recedes into the background.
The five-piece line-up is a foundation for many unusual solutions, and the uncommon instrumentation allows a full palette of musical colour (it is worth noting that the leader also reaches for the baritone violin — a wildly underrated instrument with a stunning sound). The musicians use these possibilities thoughtfully, in the form of the compositions as much as in the improvisations. With every piece the quintet shows its flexibility. It is above all a solid and consistent formation, but whenever they can, its members play with the music — and they are simply authentic in doing so, something we so often miss on the Polish scene! Remembering the albums "Inspirations" and "Expressions", one may be glad that less weight has been placed on instrumental virtuosity this time. The band presents music unencumbered by homage to the masters and detached from the literalness that — in instrumental music too — can flatten the message. One surprise for the listener may be the presence of Michał Miśkiewicz, who — unlike the others — did not appear on the quintet's two earlier records. The album differs considerably from its predecessors, and the new drummer has no small part in that. Miśkiewicz combines masterly playing with a restraint that keeps him from stepping out of line too often — the exceptional figure of this recording.
In one respect, however, this album is entirely predictable: it changes nothing in Mateusz Smoczyński's position on the jazz scene. It merely reminds us that this is a consummate musician, a complete violinist... and that, busy as he is with many parallel, prestigious projects, he found enough time to record the best album of his career so far. Since you are holding it in your hands, all that remains is to wish you a pleasant listen.
Roch Siciński