Fortuna & Dys - Maciejewski Variations (DUX Recording Producers, 2014) ****

By Stef
Do we care about genres? No. Do we care about fashion? No, of course we don't. We care about quality, vision, authenticity, emotional power ... things like that. Last year we were already very positive about the collaboration of Maciej Fortuna on trumpet and Krzysztof Dys on piano for their album "Tropy".

The music on this album is inspired by the Polish classical composer Roman Maciejewski, whose brother Wojciech assisted Fortuna and Dys with original manuscripts to bring this project to a good end. Yet this is not classical music. They take Maciejewski's material and change it, improvise on it, like any jazz musician would do. Like on their previous album this leads to great results, sometimes rhythmic and jazzy, often more abstract and lyrical.

Fortuna's trumpet tone is of a phenomenal clarity and purity, while Dys's piano playing is exceptional, frivolous and precise, effortlessly improvising on even the most classical-sounding pieces. But probably the most important thing is that they seem to enjoy the music, dragging the listener with them in their world of controlled beauty.