City of Gardens, Vol. 2 is the follow-up album of the Polish jazz trio RGG – pianist Łukasz Ojdana (who replaced founding pianist Przemysław Raminiak), double bass player Maciej Garbowski and drummer Krzysztof Gradziuk – to the trio live debut recording with Finnish trumpeter Verneri Pohjola and Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser (City of Gardens, Fundacja Słuchaj!, 2018, recorded at the City of Gardens festival in Katowice). The second volume features Finnish tenor sax player Pauli Lyytinen (who recorded before with Garbowski and Gradziuk, Swords, Fundacja Słuchaj!, 2020) instead of Pohjola, and was recorded Studio MAQ Records in Wojkowice in 2021.
RGG trio has a long history of collaborations, including a two-year collaboration with Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stańko (as Stańko’s last quartet), with British sax players Evan Parker and Trevor Watts and with Polish cornet-electronics player Artur Majewski, electronics player-flutist Dominik Strycharski and vocalist Marta Grzywacz. Each of these collaborations enriched the aesthetics of RGG beyond the realm of jazz into contemporary improvised music with a European flavor. City of Gardens, Vol. 2 continues RGG’s inquisitive and genre-defying journey. Its seven pieces flirt with chamber jazz, ecstatic free jazz, abstract electronica and contemporary music, but highlight subtle but unpredictable solutions and avoid obvious courses. Lyytinen and Blaser are perfect partners for such a thoughtful yet risk-taking journey, most of it was free improvised, with their strong-minded, individual voices and their sonic palettes, expanded by inventive extended breathing techniques.
Our Way by the Helveticus trio is a cross-generation summit of the Swiss jazz – legendary drummer Daniel Humair (who lives in Paris), now 86 years old, double bass player Heiri Känzig, 67 years old, and the youngest, trombonist Samuel Blaser, only 43 years old (who is back in Switzerland after living in Paris, New York and Berlin), captured at Studio 2 RSI in Lugano-Besso in September 2022. This second album of the trio (following 1291, Outnote, 2020) blends beautifully standards, Swiss folk songs, with original and often subversive interpretations, altered and deconstructed, and original pieces, tradition, nostalgia and modernity, lyricism and drama, intimacy and humor.
This trio established a rare, organic balance between the colorful and light touches of Humair (who also did the cover artwork), a one-of-kind Buddha of the drum set, the poetic bass moves Känzig, and the exceptional technique of Blaser, who covers for the lack of a harmonizing instrument with exceptional creativity and commanding technique that brings to mind the seminal work of German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff. The 13 pieces suggest an adventurous, highly playful, swinging ride on a Swiss roller coaster. The trio shines through its interpretations of Humair’s most familiar pieces «IRA» and «Genevamalgame», as well as in its inspired covers of Thelonius Monk classics «Jackie-Ing» and «Bemsha Swing» and Duke Ellington’s «Creole Love Call» or its dividend treatment for the traditional «Tiger Rag», and surprises on its poetic and minimalist interpretation of the traditional Swiss mazurka or the openly emotional Rhaeto-Romanic song «Chara lingua de la mamma» and the traditional ballad «Träume der Liebe». This trio has found its most beautiful and soulful way, the way of three Swiss masters who refer to the history and struggles of African-Americans expressed through blues and jazz aesthetics.
Eyal Hareuveni
Łukasz Ojdana (piano), Maciej Garbowski (double bass), Krzysztof Gradziuk (drums, toys), Pauli Lyytinen (tenor saxophone), Samuel Blaster (trombone), Daniel Humair (drums), Heiri Känzig (double bass)
