Atom String Quartet

The cult Polish Jazz vol. 91 live in Warsaw for the first time!

A hit record and bravura readings of the classics of Poland’s golden age of rock and jazz. Audiophile material, in the audiophile space of Nowa Miodowa, played by one of the most original chamber ensembles in the world.

In its newest programme Atom String Quartet takes listeners back to the remarkable era of Polish music of the 1970s and 1980s, with a short excursion into the 1990s. This was the time when jazz met funk, met the sound of new, often electric instruments, and met the singular atmosphere of a country behind the Iron Curtain. The album was released by Warner Music in the legendary Polish Jazz series as volume 91 and immediately became one of the most important releases of the year.

The quartet reaches not only for icons such as Zbigniew Seifert, Krzesimir Dębski, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Michał Urbaniak, Władysław Sendecki, Andrzej Zaucha and Novi Singers, but also for pieces from the repertoire of Perfect and Kombi.

Not all of these pieces are funk in the literal sense, yet they share a pulse, an energy, a groove and the characteristic sound of those years. It is a world of living, organic expression, which Atom String Quartet recasts in the singular language of a contemporary string quartet.

After sixteen years of playing together the time had come to go back to our roots and record funk. The album is another facet of what interests us. Some of the pieces are the music of our childhood, some are hits we had long wanted to take on, say the members of the quartet. It was a great pleasure to give them a little colour in our “atomic” style. “Atom Goes Funky” is a record about the past, but also about the here and now. It is very much about us. We want it to carry listeners into the world of Polish funk — colourful, alive and ours.

Programme:

Bez ograniczeń energii (S. Łosowski, arr. K. Lenczowski)
Funky dla Franki (J. Grzywacz, arr. M. Smoczyński)
Basia (M. Urbaniak, arr. K. Lenczowski)
Nasty Gal (J. Lee, arr. Michał Zaborski), from the repertoire of Zbigniew Seifert
Kujaviak Goes Funky (Z. Namysłowski, arr. K. Lenczowski)
Coś specjalnego (B. Kawka, arr. Krzysztof Lenczowski)
Sprzedaż glonów (J. Ptaszyn Wróblewski, arr. M. Smoczyński)
Tiritaka (K. Dębski, arr. K. Lenczowski)
Winobranie (Z. Namysłowski, arr. M. Smoczyński)
Torpedo (B. Kawka, arr. Dawid Lubowicz)
Taniec Maryny (J. Śmietana, W. Sendecki, arr. D. Lubowicz)
Jak na lotni (W. Świergiel, arr. D. Lubowicz)
Body Rub (M. Urbaniak, arr. M. Smoczyński)
Funky dla pani Hanki (J. Muniak, arr. K. Lenczowski)
Ale wkoło jest wesoło (Z. Hołdys, arr. D. Lubowicz)

Performers:

Dawid Lubowicz violin
Mateusz Smoczyński violin
Michał Zaborski viola
Krzysztof Lenczowski cello