THE AUTHOR ABOUT HIS CD PROJECT
Over the past several years, the popularization of native instrumental music has almost completely disappeared in Poland. Of course, it is about “pop” music, i.e. “Middle”. Until the beginning of the 1980s, Polish instrumental music clearly marked its presence among other genres. In addition to the recordings of formations built occasionally, there were also orchestras assigned to radio stations, which commissioned compositions from composers and arrangers, and then performed them in recording studios or concert halls. From the moment it entered the rock music market, instrumental music began its slow exodus. I would like to leave the explanation of this phenomenon, from the point of view of sociology, to experts in this matter, but for me it remains to grieve over it or actively contribute to changing the situation. Considering the popularization of instrumental music, which comes to us mainly from the United States, and the great interest it arouses among numerous recipients, I decided to choose the option of active action. The result is the preparation of the material for the album “THE HEART OF SPIDER”, which is in the style of smooth jazz, and the emerging demand for this type of music may be the fact that this album was released by the company Dom Nowej Generacji, in cooperation with Polish Radio S.A. and Seagram Poland.
Apart from the track “0”, which is rather a musical joke, the material consists of 11 tracks, most of them instrumental, with clearly marked themes. The music is mostly arranged, put on paper in the form of sheet music, leaving only fragments for improvisation to outstanding Polish instrumentalists. Throughout the process of creating, I had the thought of composing my music for specific performers, and not only for specific instruments, i.e. from the very beginning I knew who I would entrust with solo parts in all the pieces collected on the album. In the end, the recorded material proved to me that the decisions made in the composing process result in a performance that is absolutely in line with my expectations. Being at the beginning of the promotion of my album, and after the first promotional concert, which took place on September 9, 1999 in the Dramatic Theater in Warsaw, I encounter to the very flattering opinions of people associated with the media, as well as a positive response at potential recipients. This allows me to believe that with a “favorable star system in the sky ”, soon phenomena such as Kenny G., Dave Sanborn, Pat Matheny etc. will cease to be unique to the Polish audience.
To record Spider, I managed to invite a group of the best musicians who wanted to work with me and decided to add splendor to this project with their presence. My wonderful colleagues appear on the album:
- Dorota Miśkiewicz
- Henryk Miśkiewicz
- Mariusz „Fazi” Mielczarek
- Tomasz Szukalski [†]
- Piotr Wojtasik
- Ryszard Borowski
- Mirosław Pokrzywiński
- Krzysztof Herdzin
- Krzysztof Barcik
- Zbigniew Wegehaupt [†]
- Dariusz Szymańczak
- Cezary Konrad
- Wojciech „Malina” Kowalewski
- Piotr Stawski & String Art
Wojtek Zieliński
Warsaw, September 1999