On Portraits, his eighth album on the ACT label, violinist Adam Bałdych has formed an all-Polish quintet with tenor saxophone, piano, double bass and drums to play original compositions informed equally by jazz and contemporary classical chamber music.

Bałdych was considered a prodigy in his youth, graduated with distinction from the Academy of Music in Katowice, received a scholarship to study at Berklee College, and has performed worldwide to great acclaim. After a concert back in 2011, the late Ulrich Olshausen of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote, “Adam Bałdych is undoubtedly the most technically advanced violinist in jazz today. We can expect everything of him.”

This album shows such assessments and predictions to have been justified. Bałdych coaxes a huge range of tonalities from his instruments, a conventional violin and a unique replica of a Renaissance violin built by an Austrian luthier: from a shimmering riff on “Genesis” created by ricochet bowing (lightly bouncing the bow on the strings), to a low-register sonority as rich as a cello on “Canon”, a thick pizzicato and phrasing that recalls an oud on “Tree of Knowledge” and “Lullaby for the Ulma Family”, and eerie shrieks on the sombre mood pieces “Depths of the Earth” and “Vision (Talking to Jesus)”.

Like jazz violin virtuosi of the past, Bałdych has the chops for solo pyrotechnics, as on “River”. But what feels fresh is how much he subsumes himself into the musical tapestry. With bassist Andrzej Święs, for example,Bałdych’s frequent pizzicato means that on occasion the two string players almost feel like the same instrument in different registers, particularly noticeable when they play in unison at the start of “Tree of Knowledge”. There’s also some lovely violin-bass counterpointing on “Protest Song”, while Święs comes to the fore on “Relief” with a warm-toned and springy bass solo.

On tenor saxophone, Marek Konarski often provides coloration so subtle it’s barely discernable, as on “Genesis” and “Canon” – when a full-blown saxophone solo emerges on the latter, it feels organic rather than predictable, lifted to declamatory heights when Bałdych adds a counterpointing solo. Pianist Sebastian Zawadzki (like Konarski, domiciled in Denmark) is also a film composer and in his own work combines classical, jazz and electronica. These additional elements are hinted at in his hypnotic ostinati on “Canon” and “Passion” and dreamy interjections on “Vision (Talking to Jesus)”, while “Prelude” (0:42) gives a brief chance to hear him playing solo on his own composition – the only tune not written by Bałdych. Dawid Fortuna on drums and percussion adds equal subtlety to the weave of the music, from cymbal work on “Genesis” that’s as fine as raindrops in drizzle, to atmospheric shaker percussion on “Code” to a brief but muscular full-kit solo that concludes “River”.

The track titles imply a narrative arc informed by religious concerns. For example, the first track is “Genesis” and later tracks (in order) include “Tree of Knowledge”, “Litany”, “Passion”, “Vision (Talking to Jesus)” and “Hamsa” (a hand-shaped amulet for protection against the evil eye that’s common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam). The CD sleeve notes confirm this implication, explaining that Bałdych drew on Szymon Laks’ publication Auschwitz Games and poems and letters from Auschwitz-Birkenau to ask profound questions about human nature, what it means to exist, and how human sensitivity and creativity can possibly coexist with unspeakable brutality.

Bałdych’s clearest musical answer to such profound questions might well be “Lullaby for Ulma Family”. They were a Polish family of nine (including an unborn child) who, along with eight members of the two Jewish families they were hiding, were murdered in 1944 by Nazis. The entire Ulma family was beatified in September 2023. This short track (it lasts only 2:20) is a perfect example of the beauty that humans can create despite the world’s horrors, a triumph of light over dark – a musical beatification in miniature.

‘Portraits’ is released today, 31 January 2025

from https://ukjazznews.com