SLAMCD252 Jan Kopinski & Wojciech Konikiewicz – Zone K

Saxophonist Jan Kopinski and pianist Wojtek Konikiewicz go back two decades and they re-cemented their musical partnership with a tour during the saxophonist’s sabbatical from his venerable band, Pinski Zoo. This album draws on three of those gigs. Fellow Pinski Zoo member, drummer Steve Harris completes the trio.

Jan Kopinski: tenor and alto saxophones
Wojtek Konikiewicz: piano
Steve Harris: drums

“The trio’s sound is vast, dominated by Kopinski’s declamatory, occasionally banshee, saxophone and Harris’s cymbal-driven drumming punctuated by the sudden rimshots and bass bombs from the rest of his kit that provide the push and pull necessary for this urgent, driven music…A hi-energy set from a vibrant trio of innovatory musicians.” – Simon Adams, Jazz Journal

“A gig in Gainsborough is represented by “Impresja XV” and “Trinity Meet”, the former a gorgeous, startlingly pastoral solo for grand piano, the second a passionate but controlled trio composition opening out from some eloquent drumming. Kopinski is in spellbindingly authoritative form here.” – Jazz Review, Barry Witherden

“The trio share a vocabulary of jazz fusion, albeit with a gritty edge that discourages any backsliding. Though some of Konikiewicz’s sounds shimmy straight out of his keyboard’s standard settings booklet, his attack gives them a slightly distorted edge, and a crackling immediacy. Kopinski, meanwhile, sometimes smears his lines with electronic effects, wah-wah pedalling or harmonizing them into chortling abstraction.” – Martin Longley, The Wire

“It features much of Kopinski’s raw, spookily hollow and haunting saxophone sound, with plenty of off-the-wall grooving too. The music covers many of the Zoo bases, but in a more impressionistic manner. Corner Jam is a piece of urgent, battering funk over dolorous organ chords – and the excellent Konikiewicz deploys phrases not unfamiliar from an electric corea or Hancock album in his electric keys solo. The pianist’s linear melody-making is in sharp contrast to Kopinski’s, who improvises in texture more than line, and often achieves effects more suggestive of trumpets and trombones than saxophones…music of character and bite.” – John Fordham, The Guardian

“As a trio, they take a stance between semi-structured free jazz, improvising freely and collectively, and taking their cues on a several tracks from compositions supplied by two of the trio members; as on he extended work-out on Kopinski’s ‘Night To Dream’ and the solo piano feature for Konikiewicz on ‘Impresja XV’. A lovely interlude which helps to add relief to, and enhance the overall performance. There is nothing in this music that is overtly abstract, indeed the trio operate with frameworks that permit the emergence and development of a melodic idea, as opposed to shying away from what might in some improvising pools as trite or contrived; and will work with defined beats and pulses that allow the music to flow with its own momentum and logic. Another impressive release that deserves to be heard.” – Nick Lea, Jazz Views

All tracked recorded live in concert during 2002:
Tracks 1 to 3 on 7 March at the Corner House, Newcastle on Tyne
Tracks 4, 5 on 6 March at Trinity Arts Centre, Gainsborough
Track 6 on 28 February at Bonnington Theatre, Nottingham
Mastered by Tim Turan.

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