Simple Acoustic Trio | Habanera

Simple Acoustic Trio | Habanera | Not Two Records

Marcin Wasilewski – piano | Sławomir Kurkiewicz – bass | Michał Miśkiewicz – drums

Tracklist: 1. Habanera Excentrica (M. Angelo Blanco) [09:21] 2. Without Them (M. Wasilewski) [08:31] 3. Tamara (S. Kurkiewicz) [07:03] 4. Green Sky (T. Stańko) [06:00] 5. Furiozi (M. Wasilewski) [08:31] 6. Stravinsky (M. Wasilewski) [09:38] 7. Simple Song (M. Wasilewski) [03:35] 8. Simple Jungle (M. Wasilewski) [08:57]

Recorded September 6-7, 1999 at M1 Studio, Warsaw. Sound Engineer: Tadeusz Mieczkowski. Cover Photo: Tomasz Szlufik. Cover design: Aquarius Creative Team (Maciej Kalinowski & Rafat Grabie). Produced by Simple Acoustic Trio. Executive producer: Marek Winarski.

…Wasileski’s exposure to the piano and jazz came at an early age. “I started to study piano when I was seven,” says Wasilewski, “and studied classical music through high school; then I started to study jazz. But while I became more interested in jazz when I was 13, I remember hearing it for the first time when I was six years old. My uncle, who plays drums, invited me to a concert, and I remember this moment because I was so young, and I remember the music. I sometimes wonder how some people don’t like jazz, because when I was only six this music was so clear to me.

“Then I started to listen to my father’s tapes,” continues Wasilewski, “Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and others. And then when I was 13 I found a videotape of a Keith Jarrett concert from Japan. I asked my mother to buy it for me, and I remember that I watched it every day for a year-and-a-half. It was so amazing, this tape, and from that moment on I started to dream about playing this kind of music.”

Simple Acoustic Trio

It wasn’t long before Wasilewski formed Simple Acoustic Trio, a group that, with the exception of one personnel change early on when Michal Miskiewicz joined, remains unchanged to this day. “We started the group when we were in school,” Wasilewski explains, “and created the name in the playground. People have asked us if the name means anything, but it doesn’t really — we just wanted to have an English name because, for us, jazz was an American music.

“It’s quite rare for bands to last this long,” Wasilewski continues, “I know in New York everybody plays with everybody, and in Poland the musicians change too. We did have the opportunity to play with other musicians as well, and that was a very good opportunity to learn more, to experience more. But this band is really special to me because we felt a real chemistry from the very beginning. We just wanted to play together, to be better, and to play better. We learned together, and now it has been 11 years and we still feel like we’re growing. The music is always evolving; I don’t know when it will stop, but I hope never.”

Habanera is a strong, albeit more direct album that is clearly suggestive of things to come.– John Kelman – All About Jazz

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