" data-original-title="" title="">Maciej Tubis and his cohorts thankfully don't bring any such weighty baggage to their first studio date (following two live releases with slightly different lineups). "In the end, you need to play on your own. You need to tell the truth and the genre called jazz suddenly eludes you. We don't want to deceive anyone—or ourselves ..." the pianist muses in his brief thoughtful liner notes. "The stories that really tug at the heartstrings are the true, fact-based ones, even if they are simple." It's an interesting insight, and this band's inviting performances indeed find that kind of simplicity with a disarming honesty.

That's not to say that the Tubis Trio lacks sophistication or smarts. It means that their music is simple without being simplistic, managing to sound pleasantly straightforward even when things get tricky. Bandmates Pawe? Puszcza?o and Przemys?aw Pacan exhibit just the same affability in maintaining the grooves—though Tubis provides the compositions, the group's rapport is just as vital in making the experience as warm and catchy as it is. The chemistry sparks the right kind of positive energy among them, much like a friend you can't help liking because he's always smiling and pleasant to be around.

Tubis may show the genre-blending appeal of clear influences such as