about

Trio’s current history goes back even further, to the year 1990. It was then that the Simple Acoustic Trio was founded by a group of students from a music high school in Koszalin. Their debut performance would come a year later, and the band quickly began to garner awards across Poland. In 1993, the young percussionist Michał Miśkiewicz (the son of renowned Polish saxophonist Henryk Miśkiewicz) joined the Simple Acoustic Trio and since then the group plays together untouched by any personal disturbances.

Their very first record entitled “Komeda” came out in 1995, published by the Kraków based Gowi Records label. It became one of the most widely commented debuts of the year. An homage to the work of Krzysztof Komeda, it consisted entirely of his compositions. The critics and audience alike didn’t fail to hear in the recordings much more than mere interpretations of the historic pieces of Polish jazz. The reviews hailed the trio a creative continuation of this history, and one of the biggest promises of the Polish jazz scene.

Their music soon stirred the curiosity of Tomasz Stańko, the legendary Polish trumpet player. In the late 1990s, Stańko was searching for a new quartet squad, one that would allow him to pursue the kind of work he did with Bobo Stenson, Anders Jormin and Tony Oxley. The encounter with Tomasz Stańko turned out to be a turning point in the trio’s career. Stańko was quoted as saying that „In the entire history of Polish jazz there was no group like this one”.

The cooperation with Tomasz Stańko was officially launched between 1999 and 2000, and it was preceeded by occasional concert collaboration between Stańko and Wasilewski. The Simple Acoustic Trio had gained a mentor in Stańko and cooperated with him as a working band. This cooperation soon lead to recording with one of the world’s leading labels, the Munich-based ECM.

Together with Stańko they recorded three albums with the ECM: Soul of Things (2002), Suspended Night (2004) and Lontano (2006). They also made three concert tours across the US, performing in some of America’s best jazz stages: Blues Alley in Washington, Merkin Hall and Birdland in New York. Stańko and the trio also played at the San Fransisco Jazz Festival and the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle.
Although the musicians were very actively engaged in making music together, and their career was gaining speed, the actual name Simple Acoustic Trio was less and less heard of. The last album they recorded under the old name was Habanera, released by the Not Two Records label in Kraków in May, 2000.

The musicians would return to the stage as an independent trio five years later, and it was a splendid beginning. Trio’s first album under the ECM Records entitled Trio and after since its release in 2005, two more albums followed: January (2008), and Faithfull (2011), both of which were also released by ECM. Faithfull gained the status of a double platinum record and it was a huge artistic success. In 2014 ECM released their fourth album Spark Of Life with Swedish tenorist Joakim Milder. Trio continued their journey with ECM with remarkable Live album (released in 2018), to follow up with another quartet recording Arctic Riff with American tenor giant Joe Lovano (released in 2020), with whom they toured in 2021 and 2022 in Europe. In January 2022 in Poland’s leading jazz magazine’s Jazz Forum “Jazz Top” - The Annual Readers Poll for 2021 the double- tour (the Arctic Riff Tour and En attendant Tour) was voted the Best Concert Event of the Year 2021. The most recent Trio’s album En attendant was recorded a day before the (Arctic Riff) session with Maestro Lovano, and was released by ECM in June 2021.

In 2022 - in what would have been Tomasz Stańko’s 80th birthday year - Wasilewski, Kurkiewicz and Miskiewcz have participated in Remembering Tomasz Stańko - a series of concerts celebrating the life and legacy of the late, great Polish trumpeter, composer and bandleader, who died in 2018. The series, desinged by his daugther and long time manager Anna Stańko, opened with birthday concerts (on July 11 and 12) in the places where the trumpeter's career began and ended: in Rzeszów and Warsaw. Wasilewski Trio has invited Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær to commemorate Stańko and his music with his selected tunes. On September 18, 2022 Trio met in New York City - Stańko’s spiritual home away from home - with his dozen key peers and associates to share stage at Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedium, incl. Ravi Coltrane, Joe Lovano, Wadada Leo Smith, Chris Potter, Ambrose Akinmusire, Craig Taborn, David Virelles, Dezron Douglas, Gerald Cleaver, Jakob Bro and Reuben Rogers. International culmination of the series was held on November 16, 2022 at Queen Elizabeth Hall -, where Wasilewski Trio with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Avishai Cohen (tp) paid tribute to Stańko at the EFG London Jazz Festival.

One of the highlights of 2023 for the Trio was the invitation from Joe Lovano to a week residence of Joe Lovano & Marcin Wasilewski Trio at the legendary Village Vanguard Jazz Club in New York in November 2023.

In 2024 Wasilewski, Kurkiewicz and Miśkiewicz celebrate 30 years together with Marcin Wasilewski Trio- 30th Anniversary Tour 2024, co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, co-organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and supported with some Polish Institutes around the world. What a pleasant coincidence was ECM release of the Tomasz Stanko Quartet’s September Night album in June 2024 - recorded at Munich’s Muffathalle twenty years ago, in September 2004, previously-unreleased concert recording of the Tomasz Stanko Quartet - a fascinating document, capturing a developmental chapter in the music between the song forms of the Suspended Night repertoire and the improvised areas that the Poles would explore on Lontano.

In Trio’s native Poland, they are unquestionable jazz stars, with their exceptional contributions to the music landscape. Throughout their career, they have maintained a consistent standard of artistry, connecting deeply with audiences and leaving an indelible mark on the global jazz community. Since their very beginnings, the group has been building its position with numerous prizes, among them the many Fryderk Awards of the Polish Music Academy. In Poland Marcin Wasilewski enjoys to be the laureate of the biggest number of FRYDERYK Music Awards in jazz categories (11 statuettes of Fryderyk, incl. 5 x Jazz Album Of the Year, 6 x Jazz Artist Of The Year). The FRYDERYK Award’s name refers to the original Polish spelling of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin's first name, and its status in the Polish public can be compared to the American Grammy.

In 2010, the Marcin Wasilewski Trio also won the “Jazz Top” Annual Readers’ Poll of the Jazz Forum magazine for the Best Acoustic Band in Poland, gaining nearly twice as many votes as the Tomasz Stańko Quintet. From 2018 the Trio every year, consistently reaffirms its leading position in the Polish jazz scene, been voted the Best Acoustic Band in Poland in the Annual Jazz Forum Magazine's "Jazz Top" Reader’s/ Critic’s Poll.

In 2005 and 2011 Marcin Wasilewski was voted „piano rising star” in DownBeat Magazine’s Annual International Critics and Readers Polls. Four albums of the Trio („Live” 2018, „January” 2008, „Faithful” 2011 and „Spark Of Life” 2014) were also ranked on the Billboard’s Jazz Album Charts, while in Germany, the band was nominated for the German Jazz Award 2022 (Deutscher Jazzpreis) in the Best International Band category.

Over the 30 years of their activity on the music scene, Marcin Wasilewski Trio has cooperated with numerours internationally acclaimed musicians both individually and as a band. They performed with Tomasz Szukalski, Piotr Wojtasik, Michał Urbaniak, Janusz Muniak and Henryk Miśkiewicz, and also participated in international projects with stars of the international jazz scene, such as: Charles Lloyd, Joe Lovano, Jan Garbarek, Branford Marsalis, Manu Katché, Nils Petter Molvær, Dino Saluzzi, Palle Danielson, Jon Christensen, Arild Andersen, Bernt Rosengren, John Surman, Bobo Stenson, Gianluigi Trovesi, Arthur Blythe and more. 

Source: Artists materials, Maciej Karłowski culture.pl

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