By Sammy Stein
Polish artist Piotr Damasiewicz has released 'Åšwitanie' with the 'Into the Roots' band.
To appreciate this music, it helps to understand Piotr’s background and view on things temporal and ethereal. He is a composer, trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, traveler, and curator of international music platforms. He studied double bass, piano, and classical singing – including Gregorian chant – choral and chamber conducting, arrangement and composition as well as trumpet. His travels have led him to take influences from the many places he has visited.
Damasiewicz has represented Poland on four international music platforms: Take Five Europe, Jazz Plays Europe Laboratory, Art Meetings, and Melting Pot Laboratory (Jazztopad). In the last two, as a leader, composer, and instrumentalist, he developed the idea of open improvisation in contact with other fields of art. His works include ‘Hadrons’ for string quintet and jazz band commissioned by the Jazztopad festival, ‘Suite 29’ written for the World Jazz Days for Polish Radio Program Two, ‘Composition’ for 27 improvisers as part of the final Melting Pot (Jazztopad) platform in WrocÅ‚aw and the composition ‘Some Kind Of Greek Story’ based on Delphic maxims, commissioned by Casa de Musica in Porto. He also creates theatre and film music.
The list of collaborators Damasiewicz has worked with includes saxophonists David Murray, Lotte Anker, and Jason Carter, pianist Jason Moran, trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, vocalist Phil Minton, drummer Paal Nilsen Love, and many more.
The Into The Roots Band comprise Piotr Damasiewicz on trumpet, organ, voice and percussion, Zbigniew Kozera on bass and guimbri (similar to a bass lute), Pawet Szpura on drums, Michat Zat on shawm (wooden double-reeded baritone instrument), wooden transverse flute and hammered dulcimer, Katarzyna Karpowica on Koto (a Japanese zither-like instrument), Alicja and Kamila Krzeszowiak on voice, Pauline Kazmierczak on voice and violin, Krzysztof Ryt on five-string viola and Marek Ryt on bagpipes, fife and French horn. The sound that the band creates is as multicultural as the instrumentation promises.
‘Nasa Krowka’ is a wonderful escapade of enchanting music that manages to fuse an Irish timbre with Eastern vocals and a gentle leaning of the melody that leans towards European folk music.
‘Swit’ is fuller in its arrangement with the constant presence of the strung and percussive elements. It is a track that builds like a storm until the music falls as a torrent of sound across the listener, enveloping them in sonic waves, relentless in its insistence – topped by the entry of the reeds and voice. The ensemble embarks on an improvised section, the voice adding musical elements just as an instrument and the reeds and percussion driving forceful rhythm patterns into the listener’s ears, willing or not.
‘W. ogrodzie rozo’ (Rose Garden) is a gentle, multi-layered number with duality in the vocal lines and the accompaniment, while the atmospheric ‘Kumiko’ opens with gentle, almost tentative lines before a glorious fanfare of trumpet and occasional insertion of calling voice, which rises and falls, the eeriness created reminiscent of Eastern religious mysteries. Across the top comes the trumpet again in glorious voice, its melody reflected and passed back changed in vocal tones.
‘Kolisecko mojo’ (My Wheelchair) opens with organ and vocals, the gorgeous harshness of the vocal harshness contrasting beautifully with the organ lines before strings set up a walking gait, across which the vocals and other instruments perform intricate patterns that change and seemingly stalk the vocal lines, passing across notes just after the vocalist delivers them. The trumpet adds an airy flourish and voices its brassy tones before the vocal storyteller finishes gently – the meaning felt in the music even if the listener cannot understand the language.
‘Nagare’ opens with a keening trumpet and percussive element under vocal intonations and trumpet insertions. Possibly the freest track on the album in terms of expressive improvisation. At times the vocalist sounds like a Sumo wrestler as he calls and shouts. Under the melodic at times, and not-so-melodic at others, the trumpet, the percussion, and strings offer gentle contrast in tone, lines, and rhythm. A wonderful number that works its way into a full-throated harmonic structure in the final third.
‘Now’ finishes the album and is a beautiful slow burner of a track, building from a gentle introduction to a well-filled and textured number with interesting rhythm patterns, gapped and held rhythms, which keep the interest, and devilishly delicious trumpet insertions.
This album is a revelation. The music draws on many roots – from Latin to Eastern, Celtic, European, and traditional jazz. Each listen reveals a new thread or line found by purposeful and intent listening. There is a sense of composition in terms of patterns and styling but also a good dose of free playing. Not a word I use often but this is attractive music – in the way it draws on many elements and develops them simultaneously, cohesively, and intriguingly. The band members listen to each other and respond incredibly intuitively. The trumpet lines are breathtaking at times in their intensity and the language used here calls to different ethnicities. In this music, there is natural expression alongside composed and cleverly arranged episodes. It feels like it comes together easily but arranging for the different keys, tones, and subtleties of such an array of instruments must be a challenge – but here it works in beautiful ways.
Many of Piotr’s musical ideas originate in places he has travelled to, but also from his journeys, as he puts it ‘into himself and into sound’. He has travelled a great deal. Here the music reflects that, it is as if the many places he has found inspiration have each contributed a part to the music. So the combination of different languages – from jazz, ethnic music, and modern music to improvised and experimental elements comes together in a conversation that makes sense. Absolutely music for the curious listener.
