Artur Tuźnik - Spring (2022)

SPRING - the debut album from the Artur Tuźnik Sextet - takes listeners on an engaging, reflective journey through sounds, sensations, and seasons in a program featuring new music that pays homage to the bandleader and composer’s greatest inspirations. The musical voices of the carefully chosen contributing instrumentalists bring nine original tunes to life in a production that’s intimate, spiritual, and offers something for audiences of all backgrounds.

Polish pianist and composer Artur Tuźnik (b. 1989) has been based in Copenhagen, Denmark since 2008 and is one of only a few musicians to have studied at both the “classical” (Royal Danish Academy of Music) and “jazz” (Rhythmic Music Conservatory) schools in the Danish capital. His fascination with both sprawling genres is evident in his virtuosic playing, but also in his compositions, which proudly merge his affinity for composers of the impressionism era including Ravel and Szymanowski with the folksy power and mystery of Charles Mingus. While another of his projects dives headfirst into crossover-classical music (The Space Above - a piano/flute/drum trio with the same drummer heard on this new album), Tuźnik’s newest sextet release employs elements of Slavic folk melodies and Scandinavian jazz - some of which are hauntingly lullaby-like and others that meander with melancholic meaning.

As a pianist, Tuźnik is known for his work with drummer Thomas Blachman as well as saxophonist Thomas Agergaard and has performed with Tomasz Stanko, Chris Cheek, and Tony Malaby, among many others. He’s written commissioned pieces for the Classical Days festival in Holstebro, and his work as a composer has been celebrated by international audiences and reviewers alike. His most recent trio recording (with Nils Davidsen and Jakob Høyer on bass and drums, respectively) introduced a unique sound and approach and garnered critical acclaim around the world. Polish National Radio called his compositions and the overall ambiance of the self-titled Artur Tuznik Trio album “a beautiful thing,” while the Danish Newspaper POLITIKEN referenced the “alluring calm and adventurous contemplation in his playing.” Tuźnik has also received special recognition as a soloist and is the recipient of musicianship awards at festivals in Burghausen (DE), Leuven (BE), Getxo (ES), and Wrocław (PL).

The lineup of musicians he’s selected for his sextet reads like a modern all-star band of Scandinavian-based players - American tenor saxophonist Ned Ferm, who has called Copenhagen home since 2001, and is known for his work with everyone from Roswell Rudd to Kurt Rosenwinkel; Norwegians Erik Kimestad on trumpet (a member of Kresten Osgood’s Quintet), and Simon Albertsen on drums (Espen Berg Trio, WAKO); Swedish trombonist Petter Hängsel (Danish Radio Big Band, Horse Orchestra); and the legendary Danish bassist Anders “AC” Christensen (Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band, Tomasz Stanko). Each of the soloists shines on this album that is thick with highlights.

The songs were recorded in The Village Recording Studio in Copenhagen in early 2020 (just pre-pandemic) by Thomas Vang, and later mixed and mastered by Brian Massaka. The band set up and played together in the same room - a decision made by Tuźnik in order to create a musical intimacy among the players and bring that sound to listeners. That incredible closeness is present throughout this album that absolutely sparkles with creative joy while it inspires nuanced nostalgia. The horn arrangements and overall sound of the production harken back to a time when jazz was moving and thought-provoking without being overly challenging on listeners’ ears and brains.

The first four songs (Road to Nowhere, January, Spring, Tales From the Road) are all interconnected and are based on unique harmonies and forms. Material from Road to Nowhere and Spring are referenced in Tales From the Road - a solo piano piece that functions as an overview for the first part of the musical journey. SIDE B kicks off with the enchanting Lazy Song - a tenor saxophone feature that allows both Ferm and Tuźnik to soar on the moving minor mood. Christensen plays the band into the energetic, tidal rubato flow of Monday with a meditative bass solo, and the album goes to another new place on Water - a tune that follows the theme down a stream that develops into a babbling brook and later becomes roaring rapids. The album’s final selection, Monstera Deliciosa, is a return to the group’s “swing” mode - a sound and energy they explore with a confident and clear creative spirit heard all too rarely in modern music.
SPRING is a journey in itself, and each song holds up on its own while also contributing to the album as a whole. Artur Tuźnik and his sextet are intensely focused on presenting musical beauty in the present, rather than being consumed by taking jazz music in totally new and never-before-heard directions. The songs and soloists pay tribute to the sounds that made them fall in love with music, and together, they present the material in imaginative arrangements spanning styles that pull at the ears and heartstrings of listeners.

The Artur Tuźnik Sextet has officially arrived in 2022 with an album that reminds us of the interconnectedness of the composer’s influences and tunes that put his clear appreciation for nature, spiritualism, and musical beauty front and center. The melodic, harmonic, and structural flow of the music whisks listeners away on a journey that’s engaging, entertaining, and peppered with provocative, natural tension and resolution. SPRING deserves to be heard multiple times to fully grasp its depth, and as the detailed layers of meaning unfold with each listening experience, audiences can look forward to understanding more about the Artur Tuźnik Sextet and its musical mission.