PIOTR WYLEŻOŁ “HUMAN THINGS” FEAT. DAYNA STEPHENS (PL/US)

Piotr Wyleżoł – piano
Sławomir Kurkiewicz – double bass
Michał Miśkiewicz – drums
feat. Dayna Stephens (US) – sax

*tickets: 30/40 pln

PIOTR WYLEŻOŁ

Piotr Wyleżoł – polish pianist and composer.

Born December 6^th, 1976. As a child, he was already winning awards at national piano competitions in Poland and playing concerts with a classical repertoire. At 10 and 11 years old, he performed Mozart and Beethoven piano concertos with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Rybnik, Poland.

In 1989, he completed the Karol and Antoni Szafranków Public Primary School of Music in Rybnik, in the piano class of Romana Fritzowa, and graduated from the Karol Szymanowski Public Secondary School of Music in Katowice in 1995, in the piano class of Irena Kryszczukajtis. In 2000, he received his diploma from the Katowice Academy of Music, where he studied piano under Wojciech Niedziela in the Department of Jazz and Popular Music.

He began his jazz performing career while still studying in Katowice, in groups led by Janusz Muniak, Jarek Śmietana and Marek Bałata, among others. As a student, he was also a laureate of numerous jazz competitions and festivals: Jazz Juniors in Krakow (1^st prize), the Jazz Standards Festival in Siedlce (1^st prize), the Pomeranian Jazz Autumn’s “Key to a Career” and Jazz on the Oder in Wrocław (individual award for best instrumentalist),  and the International Jazz Improvisation Competition in Katowice.

Piotr Wyleżoł has led his own trio since beginning his activity as an artist. In 2001 his first CD as a leader was released, titled “Yearning” and recorded with Adam Kowalewski on bass, and Łukasz Żyta on drums. Even then, the music press was generous in its praise: “This is one of the most interesting debut albums to come out in some time. A trio of young Polish musicians has created a musical atmosphere on this CD which is on a par with some of the finest work in this genre.” (Jazz Forum, November 2001). In 2006 his second CD, “Piano Trio” (with Michał Barański on bass and Łukasz Żyta on drums) was released, and in 2009 the renowned label Fresh Sound Records released his third and latest project, “Children’s Episodes”. This CD was issued on that label’s New Talent series, which includes names like Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Chris Cheek, among others. It’s worth mentioning that Piotr Wyleżoł is the first Polish musician ever to have been included by Fresh Sound in this distinguished circle of musicians. “Children’s Episodes” was also nominated for a Fryderyk Award (Poland’s equivalent of a Grammy Award), in the Jazz Album of The Year category. Besides the trio studio albums, his discography also includes two live recordings as a leader. The first, “Quintet Live”, was released in 2010 and included guest musicians Adam Pierończyk on sax, and David Doruzka on guitar, while the second – titled “DuoDram” – is a piano duo concert with Sławek Jaskułke, recorded at the “Jazz in Gdynia” festival.

In the course of his presence on the professional jazz stage thus far, he has had occasion to work with a number of its leading figures, including: Gary Bartz, Billy Hart, Nigel Kennedy, Steve Logan, Monty Waters, Bennie Maupin, Janis Siegel, Ed Schuller, Antymos Apostolis, Piotr Baron, Andrzej Cudzich, Urszula Dudziak, Kazimierz Jonkisz, Grzegorz Nagórski, Adam Pierończyk, Tomasz Szukalski, Tomasz Stańko, Mika Urbaniak, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, and others. He has worked regularly with Nigel Kennedy since 2005, taking part in the violinist’s own projects as well as performing classical concerts with him, playing harpsichord in a repertoire of Bach and Vivaldi.

Piotr Wyleżoł has performed at numerous concerts and festivals throughout Poland, as well as in several dozen various countries of the world. Besides his own CDs recorded as a leader and co-leader, he has participated in a significant number of recordings by other artists, and the number is constantly growing. He has also been teaching piano at the Krakow Academy of Music’s Jazz and Modern Music Department since 2007.

http://www.piotrwylezol.com/

DAYNA STEPHENS

Since the release of his 2007 disc, The Timeless Now (CTA), Dayna Stephens has emerged as one of his generation’s most distinguished modern jazz tenor saxophonists and composers. He hones a sinewy yet supple tone that unfurls poised improvisations that maximize melodic ingenuity. As a composer, Stephens continues to build a multifaceted oeuvre filled with pieces that are cinematic in dynamic scope as they incorporate and suspenseful dialogue and interplay.

In addition to establishing himself as a leading early 21^st century jazz voice, Stephens has collaborated with an impressive array of jazz musicians, including pianists Brad Mehldau, Taylor Eigsti, Muhal Richard Abrams, Kenny Barron, Theo Hill, Gerald Clayton and Aaron Parks; drummers Brian Blade, Al Foster, Idris Muhammad, Marvin “Boogaloo” Smith, Eric Harland, Matt Slocum and Justin Brown; trumpeters Roy Hargrove, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Michael Rodriguez; saxophonists Jaleel Shaw, Ben Wendel, Chris Potter, John Ellis and Walter Smith III; bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa, Joe Sanders, Linda Oh, Doug Weiss and Larry Grenadier; vocalists Gretchen Parlato, Becca Stevens and Sachal Vasandani; guitarists Julian Lage, Lage Lund and Charles Altura.

The New York Times heralded Stephens as a “must see,” and wrote, “Everything flows with unusual flow fluency and makes you feel rewarded,” regarding his improvisational facilities. “When I’m playing, I’m really trying to make something new happen,” explains Stephens about his approach to improvisation. “It often happens by playing unintentional notes. That leads me to somewhere. It’s always trying to come up with something singable.”

Stephens has released five discs as a leader on the CTA, Sunnyside and Criss-Cross labels. Noted producer Matt Pierson shepherd his most recent disc, Peace (Sunnyside, 2014), which featured Mehldau, Lage, Grenadier and Harland. Its follow-up, Gratitude (Sunnyside), showcasing the same lineup, is slated to release in summer 2015. Also slated for 2015, is Reminiscent (Criss Cross), featuring Smith III, Parks and drummer Rodney Green.

In collaboration with childhood friend and pianist Taylor Eigsti, Stephens penned large-scaled compositions for San Francisco’s Peninsula Symphony Orchestra. Stephens also wrote big band charts for the Berklee College of Music and a wide-screen arrangement of Dave Brubeck’s “The Duke,” for the Oakland East Bay Symphony, which premiered in 2013 at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre for its “Celebration of the Music of Dave Brubeck” concert.

For NPR’s A Blog Supreme, Eigsti said this about Stephens’ compositional acumen: “Dayna has a way of using harmonic subtleties to create unpredictable emotions throughout his compositions and arrangements. The way he composes is genuine, and he puts his personality into all of his tunes. His beautiful energy as a human being comes through his compositions very vividly and honestly.”

Born Aug. 1, 1978 in Brooklyn, N.Y., Stephens grew up in the California Bay Area. While he cites his father, Rodney Stephens, with helping develop his love for music, it’s Elbert Bullock, Stephens’ maternal grandfather, whom he credits as being his first significant music hero. Bullock played the saxophone professionally in the 1950s; and it’s his sound that Stephens often aims to capture. “When I first started playing saxophone, I encouraged [Bullock] to take out his horn for the first time in a while,” Stephens recalls. “The first thing I heard was this big, warm vibrato. That warmth is something that I’ve been chasing after ever since.”

Stephens began playing the saxophone at age 12 and eventually studied under noted saxophonist Dann Zinn, who imparted the wisdom of daily practice. As Stephens progressed, he enrolled in various jazz programs at UC Berkley, Oakland’s Golden Gate Library and the Stanford Jazz Workshop, where he studied under Kenny Barron. Stephens also played at the Berkeley High School’s big band while picking up professional gigs with such local figures as pianist Ed Kelly and trumpeter Khalil Shaheed.

After graduating high school in 1997, Stephens attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship before enrolling in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (based in Los Angeles), in which he studied with trumpeter Terence Blanchard, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and pianist Herbie Hancock. Unfortunately, it was when Stephens first embarked on his college studies that he was diagnosed with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSG), a rare kidney disease. A determined Stephens, nevertheless, soldiered on and excelled at both aforementioned music institutions.

Stephens now resides in Paterson, N.J. and plays a lot in New York City’s jazz scene at such venues as Smalls, The Village Vanguard and the Jazz Standard. He complements his involvement with jazz by teaching at Manhattan’s New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and at Stanford University. “I get as much out of teaching as I do practicing, because it forces me to put all of my ideas into cohesive sentences that I can be transferred to someone else,” he says.

http://daynastephenssound.com/