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Marcin Wasilewski Trio: En Attendant

By Chris May
September 3, 2021
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The Marcin Wasilewski Trio's seventh ECM album traverses material by such disparate composers as J.S. Bach,

Carla Bley

piano
1938 - 2023

" data-original-title="" title="">Carla Bley and The Doors and brings it all together in a seamless package which also includes three spontaneously created group improvisations. It is a beauty.

Pianist

Marcin Wasilewski

piano
b.1975

" data-original-title="" title="">Marcin Wasilewski, bassist

Slawomir Kurkiewicz

bass, acoustic

" data-original-title="" title="">Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer

Michal Miskiewicz

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Michal Miskiewicz have been playing together for almost thirty years, first as the Simple Acoustic Trio, then as three-quarters of trumpeter

Tomasz Sta��ko

trumpet
1942 - 2018

" data-original-title="" title="">Tomasz Sta��ko's Quartet, then under Wasilewski's name. It shows. The musicians operate as one while passing the baton between each other, sometimes as often as every bar or two. Few groups could stay together for so long without getting set in their ways, but somehow this one has.

En Attendant opens with the first of the three group improvs, "In Motion (Part 1)," which, like "Part 11" and "Part 111," spins on a dime between the reflective and the assertive. "Variation No. 25," from Bach's "Goldberg Variations," follows.

Jacques Loussier

piano
1934 - 2019

" data-original-title="" title="">Jacques Loussier, bless him, this is not. Neither is it as radical a reimagining as

Cecil Taylor

piano
1929 - 2018

" data-original-title="" title="">Cecil Taylor might have brought to the piece. Time is stretched and new emphases found but the topline stays pretty much intact.

Carla Bley's evergreen "Vashkar," first recorded by

Paul Bley

piano
1932 - 2016

" data-original-title="" title="">Paul Bley's trio with bassist

Steve Swallow

bass
b.1940

" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Swallow and drummer

Pete La Roca

drums
1938 - 2012

" data-original-title="" title="">Pete La Roca on Footloose (Savoy) in 1963, is similarly reshod and zooshed. More to the wonder, so is The Doors' schlub grinder "Riders On The Storm," from the Sunset Strip miserabilists' L.A. Woman (Elektra, 1971). What next for Wasilewski, Kurkiewicz and Miskiewicz? The title track off Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Atco, 1968)? En Attendant includes just one pre-composed inhouse original, "Glimmer Of Hope," previously heard on Arctic Riff (ECM, 2020), the album the group recorded with saxophonist

Joe Lovano

drums
b.1952

" data-original-title="" title="">Joe Lovano. Well titled, Wasilewski's tune transmits an inner glow, and it is good to hear it in trio form. By the time the last notes of "In Motion Part 111" have faded way, just over 43 minutes have flown by (as in leave them wanting more).

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Track Listing

In Motion Part 1; Variation No. 25; Vashkar; In Motion Part 11; Glimmer Of Hope; Riders On The Storm; In Motion Part 111.

Personnel

Marcin Wasilewski

piano

Slawomir Kurkiewicz

bass, acoustic

Michal Miskiewicz

drums

Album information

Title: En Attendant | Year Released: 2021 | Record Label: ECM Records

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