Zbigniew Lewandowski Quintet - A New Opening (2024)

A New Opening is a return to recording for drummer Zbigniew Lewandowski after many years of education. But interestingly, this album can also be a kind of return in time for the listener, while also carrying educational value. For me, this album took me all the way back to 2000, to Jarosław Śmietana's African Lake, and I mention this association only as a compliment to Lewandowski and company. There is swing, drive, feeling here - and probably a few other English-language terms could be squeezed in, but we know well that it is no small effort to put into words the positive energy of the band, the catchiness of themes, the classicity of the harmonies.

This material is a solid mainstream permeated with fusion thought, where – if we don’t focus on the leader – the saxophonist Tomasz Pruchnicki (author of most of the compositions) and guitarist Kenny Carr (a bit like on the previously mentioned album Jarosław Śmietana and Gary Bartz) lead the way. And if it’s a musical journey, then there’s also a bit of sentiment. In the telling Afro Cuyaviak we mention Zbigniew Jaco Jakubek, in Paradise Birds and the piece Góralski Quartet we doubly bow to Zbigniew Namysłowski. Leszek’s Song is already a dedication to the leader’s brother.

I mentioned Śmietana, and I read that the inspiration for creating the material were sounds created by, among others, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Steve Gadd, Mike Stern and Janusz Skowron. I said that the album carries educational value! It is worth making a "new beginning" and returning to those atmospheres or... making a new beginning and getting to know such atmospheres for the first time.

Wojciech Sobczak-Wojeński