Schaeffer | Maseli | Tomaszewski

For us, jazz was a system of freedoms subordinated to a voluntarily accepted discipline of integral ties between individuals and groups. And in this sense, it has become perhaps the best metaphor for the freedom that our culture has produced. (...) Jazz broke the composer's total hegemony, deprived the musical notation of the priority in the phenomenon of creating music, handed over to the performer the right to a creative act, called the player's inventiveness to fascinating tasks, ripped off the performer's shell, made him a creator and restored to him the incredible joy of creating. It is where the revolutionary power of jazz lies, (...) this power determines its influence on the epoch and generation.


It is how Leopold Tyrmand characterized the importance of jazz not only for the Polish music scene but also for social thought in the dark times of the past chapter of our history. The "right to a creative act" – so strictly regulated – fascinated many characters. So many people tried to make the best of it where possible. It is how the work of Bogusław Schaeffer should be understood, who among his 550 compositions used all musical genres – from classical music to jazz – through the third trend, using elements of the previous two. Many of these compositions have been waiting for many years to be performed and released. At the next ESPRESSIVO concert, we will be able to hear one of them.

The third trend is "neither jazz played on classical instruments, nor classics played by jazzmen; neither jazz fugue nor fugue played in jazz". The creator of the term, Gunther Schuller, considered it "a new genre of music, halfway between classical and jazz." "Music for MI" is a piece written by Bogusław Schaeffer for Jerzy Milian – an outstanding vibraphonist, jazzman and arranger, who passed the manuscript to Bernard Maseli, before his death. During the concert, "Music for MI" will be arranged by Paweł Tomaszewski with the accompaniment of the Szczecin Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in the spirit of the third trend.

The second part of the concert will feature compositions inspired by the third trend: Bernard Maseli, who has been ranked first in the "vibraphone" category in the Jazz Top poll of the Jazz Forum monthly for 20 years, a highly regarded composer and arranger (the musician has over seventy albums) and Paweł Tomaszewski, recognized as one of the best Polish jazz pianists of the young generation, composer, laureate of 2009 Fryderyk award, currently dean of the Faculty of Jazz and Popular Music at the Academy of Music in Katowice.