Record Reviews

ANDRZEJ JAGODZINSKI ~ CHOPIN LES BRILLANTES NOT ON LABEL (Barcode: 9788393067404) ~ POLAND ~ Jazz Recorded: 2009 Released: 2010 This is the fifth album dedicated to Jazz interpretations of the music composed by the great Polish composer Frederic ChopinFind albums by this artist recorded by Polish Jazz pianist / composer Andrzej JagodzinskiFind albums by this artist and his trio with bassist Adam CegielskiFind albums by this artist and drummer Czeslaw BartkowskiFind albums by this artist. This double album is a fact a new recording of the same material that is featured on the trio´s first two albums recorded fifteen years earlier, re-captured from a retrospective view and enriched by years of common experiences and joy of playing this music together. When Jagodzinski first recorded Chopin´s music twenty years ago he was pioneering a trend, which in time swept the Polish Jazz scene like a tsunami, with literally hundreds of albums with Chopin´s music reinterpreted in the Jazz milieu. These attempts to follow a trend and jump on a bandwagon, which varied in quality form important and innovative to completely redundant and often preposterous, eventually had an adverse effect on the Polish Jazz fans, who had just about enough of Jazzy Chopin being showed down their throats. Even if the original recording of Chopin´s music by Jagodzinski and his trio were not perfect and lacked the practice, they were bold, innovative and fresh. Sadly the repeated attempt, although richer and with better arrangements, lacks the original qualities and therefore is in some respect not such a great idea. Of course Jagodzinski and his cohorts are superb musicians and do a wonderful job playing on this album, but sticking to the original recordings is by and large preferable and sounds like a good idea. On the other hand since the original PoloniaFind albums on this label releases are not easily available, perhaps this album can fill the gap. Overall there is plenty of great music herein, as well as excellent playing by these legendary veterans and in case you don´t own the original recordings this one is definitely worth checking out.

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