As part of the Polish website Jazzarium.pl's 5th anniversary celebration, UK tenor saxophonist Evan Parker joined the Polish RGG free-improvising piano trio of Lukasz Ojdana on piano, Maciej Garbowski on bass, and Krzysztof Gradziuk on drums, for this four-part sophisticated collective improvisation recorded at the legendary Alchemia club in Krakow.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2017 Country: Poland Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Alchemia, in Krakow, Poland, on June 12th, 2016, by Rafal Drewniany.
"On June 15th 2016 the website jazzarium.pl celebrated its fifth anniversary. It wasn't turning 18, but in the virtual reality time flows a bit differently, you count it not the same way as outside the Internet. Little or full-grown, we are very happy that thanks to you we were able and we are still able to do what we do. For you. Without you: both listeners and concert-goers, both CD producers and organisers of concerts, we wouldn't have been at the place we are now and most probably we wouldn't have found the power to continue. We are not big fans of exuberant celebrations and grand gala evenings, or PR slogans which are often much louder than the music they are supposed to promote. However, our fifth birthday was so important to us, that we decided to celebrate it in an appropriate way.
What was the way? Music, obviously - but what music? On such occasion we wanted to hear music that was unheard before. Music, that gives you no chance to prepare for or to anticipate its perception; music that is full of risk on one hand, and that can open new horizons for both listeners and musicians on the other. Therefore, we decided to invite artists, who in theory have very little in common (country of origin, years of stage experience, range of musical background), but in fact are not that different from one another - they have all dedicated their whole life to music and they've been doing it consequently and with just as much enchantment as at the beginning of their career. And, what's even more important, they keep taking their own way.
It was a great honor to host the great magician of improvisation, Even Parker together with the most promising, in our opinion, formation of the Polish jazz scene, RGG. They played together on the hospitable stage of legendary Alchemia club in Krakow and today we're handing the recording of this meeting to you, believing that their music will be remembered by you as long as it's remembered by us."-Fundacja Slucha
"RGG was founded in 2001 by three students of the Jazz Faculty of the Music Academy in Katowice - Przemysław Raminiak (piano), Maciej Garbowski (double bass), Krzystof Gradziuk (drums). Their debut came in 2003, thanks to their winning the prestigious contest at the Bielska Zadymka Jazz Festival (today's Lotos Jazz Festival). They were awarded with a recording session at Radio Katowice and released Scandinavia - an album revealing their love for the Scandinavian approach towards improvised music. The recording received nothing but praise from jazz journalists. Adam Baruch wrote for Polish Jazz Magazine:
Although obviously the work of young musicians, this is an incredibly impressive debut recording by any standard. The performances are remarkably mature and the compositions are both beautifully melodic and startlingly complex and excellently crafted. The overall level of this album is a clear indication of the potential this trio will fully develop in the years to come.
Right after Scandinavia's release, RGG embarked on the biggest project in the trio's history - recording a triptych comprising of three albums: Straight Story (inspired by David Lynch's film entitled likewise), Unfinished Story - Remembering Mieczysław Kosz (dedicated to an amazingly gifted Polish pianist who died prematurely at the age of 29 in the 1970s) and True Story - In Two Acts which seemed to be an ending not only to the Story project but also to the process of crystallizing the trio's style. Maciej Nowak wrote for Jazz Forum:
True Story was RGG's credo of sorts, of the highest belief in artistic power of improvisation, of strongly standing for a certain aesthetic.
After exploring the spacious landscapes of freely improvised acoustic jazz, RGG members decided to return to 'more organized and written' music. Their 5th album entitled One is often regarded as a summary of the triptych. It fully shows the potential of the trio as a collective group of improvisers but on the other hand it draws inspiration from contemporary and chamber classical music. It seems to be much more planned and vigorous, including compositions such as the fast and dynamic C.T. - referring to one of the founders of the free jazz, the great Cecil Taylor.
In 2013 Łukasz Raminiak left the trio and was replaced by a young pianist Łukasz Ojdana. By this means, RGG trio (a name which used to stand for musicians' surnames initials) became the first piano trio to change their pianist."-Wojciech Oleksiak, Cluture.PL