Adam Pieronczyk Trio "Live in Berlin"
Meta Records / Challenge
Jazzflits 11 feb 2007
Recently quite some music from Switzerland and Poland reaches the shelves of Dutch record shops. From Poland, Tomasz Stannko is the pioneer of which we think at first hand.
But the recent album of Adam Pieronczyk proves that great jazz is played all over Europe.
Apart from the saxophonist, the trio consists of Ed Schuller and Polish drummer Krzysztof Dziedzic.
"Live in Berlin" has been recorded in 2005, at the "Jazz Units Festival". Apparently, it's a small festival, since the audience seems to sound like no more than twenty people. That intimacy has been made use of by the trio.
It takes its time for silent intros and allows people access to their deeper musical feelings.
For that reason the compositions (all by Pieronczyk) can be more intense. The disc opens with the fifteen minutes composition "Busem po Sao Paulo", which means "Sao Paulo by bus" in Polish. The long journey starts with an intense drum solo. The saxophonist joins in a few bars later and together with the bass a trip along various valuable sites occurs where guide Pieronczyk apparently is the spokesman.
Another piece with a repetitive theme recalls the apparent simplicity of "A Love Supreme". The leader doesn't have to walk on tiptoes by absence of the piano. He stays with himself, exposes without obstruction and is helped in this by letting the musicians play solo or by two.
The sound recording is very direct. This emphasizes the club atmosphere. Also, the three instruments sound "separated" from each other. Especially the double bass sounds so movingly beautiful. Poland seems to be quite close by for that.
Peter J. Korten (translation: Paul Kuitenbrouwer)

Jazzthing Februar 2007 / modern
Es gibt noch Saxofonisten, die sich was trauen. Der Pole Adam Pieronczyk stellt sich mit seinem Tenor und Sopran ungeschützt im Trio vors Publikum. Das kann er sich unter anderem deshalb erlauben, weil er mit seinem Landsmann Krzysztof Dziedzic über einen phänomenalen Schlagzeuger verfügt. Im viertelstündigen Opener „Sao Paulo By Bus“ fegt der dermaßen rasant über die seltsamsten Becken und Toms, dass sein Set zu einem zu einem höchst originellen Orchester mutiert. Dritter im Bunde ist der Bassvirtuose Ed Schuller, der im wohl rhetorisch gemeinten“...Wanna Be A Musician?“, so manchen dazu animieren dürfte, zum Kontrabass zu greifen. Der Leader selbst verfügt über einen angriffslustigen Ton, der ihn nicht nur die kürzeren, in ihrer volksliedhaften Sanglichkeit angenehm schlicht erscheinenden Stücke, überzeugend mit Leben füllen, sondern den vorallem ins Freie ausufernden längeren Nummern nie um einen Einfall verlegen sein lässt. Live-Mitschnitte, die einen wünschen lassen, dabei gewesen zu sein, gibt es nicht so häufig : Dies hier ist so einer. / rt

“... Adam Pierończyk is remarkable saxophonist.
Few other Polish instrumentalists posess a comparable level of agility or melodic inventiveness. Yet the key to Pierończyk's creativity is the restlessness of constant searching, which renders each of his albums a striking journey through various moods and styles. The superb 'Amusos' (2003) and 'Sao Paulo by Bus' have established this artist on a European scale, the concert album 'Live in Berlin' continues this fortuitous trend.”
Tymon Tymanski, Dziennik 11/2006 (***** very good)

“This CD gets 5 stars.
The concert recording of Adam Pierończyk's trio is a superb album.
Despite the trio being devoid of a harmonic instrument, one feels no discomfort whatsoever (bravo to the bassist and drummer). This is something that only the most exceptional saxophonists are capable of achieving, and one can certainly consider Pierończyk to be among them.

The instrumentalists communicate with one another fluidly and, similarly to the album 'Sao Paulo by Bus', display nothing but their finest aspects. It's a shame we weren't there with the band on that November evening in Berlin; concerts like that are something to remember, and it's great that the spirit of this one managed to get preserved on CD.”
Piotr Iwicki, Gazeta Wyborcza 01/2007

“Pierończyk – one of Poland's finest saxophonists – has a sense of humour...

This translates directly into a kind of buoyancy in performance. His music has a charming tendency towards flirtation with with other musical genres.

One can even hear a fascination with arabic music here and there. The trio is tight, and one's attention is drawn to Ed Schuller – the bassist of the group. Pierończyk's playing is lyrical and evocative – a truly excellent CD!”
Belina, Machina 12 / 2006 (****)

“Album of the week: Pierończyk Live.
The futuristic jazz of Pierończyk's trio is extraordinary music.

It stimulates with its energy, only to soothe immediately afterwards with the ethno-trance sound created by the saxophone, bass and drums. Following a recording session in Sao Paulo, Brazil which resulted in the amazing album “Sao Paulo by Bus”, saxophonist Adam Pierończyk's trio has begun a European concert tour...

Pierończyk and his two companions' cutting-edge jazz makes for a substantial dose of adrenaline. Jungle rhythms and sounds that hail from the world of club music are underpinned with strong, free-style improvisation...

'Live in Berlin' is testimony to the excellent form of Adam Pierończyk's trio. It may seem banal to put it that way, but it's only to be expected, as these are true masters of modern jazz.
Tomasz Handzlik, Co Jest Grane 11/2006

"We won't find swing here, nor will we find easy-going walking bass lines, or the subtle rustling of brushes on the drums. To put it briefly – in order to avoid creating a scene at home, it might be better to listen to this album through some earphones. But it's worth it to sneak off from the family and subject one's self to the waves of a sonic maelstrom that disrupts our musical assumptions.

Is music supposed to be beautiful? Is it meant to assuage? Does jazz have boundaries? Adam Pierończyk – one of the most interesting of Poland's younger generation of saxophonists – seems to offer contradictory answers to these questions. He does so assertively, but without revolutionary rabidness. What sort of music is this? It's doubtlessly free jazz, but of a sort in which the fiery saxophone improvisations are counterbalanced by the coolness of rational structure. This structure is maintained by the bass, which persistently and sequentially reiterates the complex melody lines that Pierończyk composes. The drums, on the other hand – played by the amazing Krzysztof Dziedzic – are a full-fledged participant in the trance-like anarchy. It's Dziedzic who prompels Pierończyk toward levitation. The individual contributions of the trio's members aren't all that came out fantastically here. The dialogs between Schuller and the restless Pie rończyk were what was most interesting to me. It's in these that one can most clearly perceive the bold discourse between chaos and structure, without which free music either becomes noise, or extremely boring.”
Łukasz Tischner, Diapazon 02/2007

"It's been obvious for some time that Adam Pierończyk prefers smaller formats – music in which the harmonic structure is either not overly obvious, or treated in a fairly open manner. For such music to be solid and convincing, however, and not become mired in chaos and randomness, which is often something that can ruin any art form, it must fulfill several criteria.

The most basic of these would seem to me to be self-control. To put it another way – that which emerges from creativity must have priority over well-rehearsed 'automaticism', the heart and mind must have dominance over the fingers. 
Pierończyk has attained this self-control to an extent that is at the very least satisfying; and - as is no less important in smaller line-ups - thanks to the fact of his considerable technical prowess on his instrument, his music is free of repetitious self-plagiarisms, changes constantly and pulses with a wide range of concepts.

Adam Pierończyk doesn't draw from non-jazz sources directly, but rather treats elements that emerge from these sources as a kind of motivating impulse. Drummer Krzysztof Dziedzic's performance on “Live in Berlin” is worthy of high praise. The third artist in making up the trio, bassist Ed Schuller, is a true giant – an artist in the full meaning of that word! Throughout the album, in his accompaniments as well as his inventive and virtuosic solos, Schuller's playing is an example of mastery of the highest level. All in all, what we have here is a CD that offers modern, fresh-sounding acoustic jazz with an amazingly rich and varied range of sounds."
Robert Buczek, Jazz Forum 01/2007 (****)

"...Das Trio mit dem Berlin-New-Yorker Ed Schuller am Bass und Krzysztof Dziedzic an den Drums agiert einfuehlsam, organisch, dicht und durchaus groovend.

...Man koennte es vielleicht als Ethno-Folk inspirierten, Groove- und Drive-betonten Free-Bop bezeichnen, dem aber auch Ruhe und Gelassenheit innewohnt oder einfach Jazz a la Pieronczyk."
Andreas Ebert, Jazzpodium 02/2007