KVT – Polish Jazz

Chopin and all that Jazz

We get some totally awesome music for free in Hanoi if you don’t believe me just look at the EU music festival lineup next week. I’m lining up at the Goethe early on Monday for my supply of free tickets. For any serious lovers of jazz, classical or/and pop it will be an un-missable feast. A brilliant taste was given to us by the Poles on Thursday night with a free entry jazz recital by the Smietana Quartet led by that great Polish jazz guitarist, Jarek Smietana.

It was a real post modern start with the quartet giving us a couple of wild and wonderful re-arrangements of a Chopin mazurka and nocturne. As Poland is celebrating the 200th birthday of their most celebrated son – Chopin – it was very apt and Chopin would have wildly applauded the bluesy appropriations.

Jarek Smietana has been a Polish jazz icon since the 1970’s when he was a prominent figure in the Young Power movement that began questioning the existing dogmas. It was a verbally critical and musically adventurous group that set down the foundations for today’s diverse and strong Polish jazz scene of which the oldies, like Smietana, are now the jazz establishment. They are being pushed and shoved by exciting avant garde youngsters who are following in the footsteps of these mentors who had to push and shove at Stalinistic conformities and musical dictates.

The drummer, Adam Czerwinski, is a long time associate of Smietana and the brilliant pianist (Seb Bernatowicz) and double bassist (Tomas Kupiec) get together with the maestro occasionally to play as a quartet and we were so, so lucky to get them.

The original music of Smietana and a growly Jimmy Hendrix ballad, ‘Lttle Wing’ (plus those Chopins) were enough to make you want to stand in the aisle and move and groove. And had the concert tickets been let loose on the young jazz aficionados of Hanoi instead of a fairly staid (though politely receptive) audience, the old Nha Hat Lon would have jumped as never before.

It was a pity that the Opera House was less than half full ‘cos had the concert been fully advertised and the afore mentioned aficionados been given those freebies what a night of wonderful celebration the Poles would have had.

Smietana is famous for his irreverent jokes and off the cuff statements during performances and his almost politically incorrect delights on Thursday had a lot of us groaning with pleasure, though I suspect a few of the diplomatic elite were staidly smothering their smiles or rolling their eyes.

All in all some of the best jazz I’ve heard in Hanoi and it did Chopin – and all of those who fought for Polish independence – very proud. And we aint heard nuthin yet as this clip shows:

I’m off to Poland next spring on a Lot Airline flight for the Jazz and because they co-sponsored the event and now have direct flights from Hanoi to Warsaw. How lucky can we get?

And here’s a brief history of Polish Jazz: