Oberkas Travel

DJ Dotyk Dźwiękiem will play after the concert

Musicians
Mateusz Niwiński – violin, Jan Emil Młynarski – percussion, Piotr Zabrodzki – piano, synthesizers, Piotr Domagalski – podge

PPA production: Michał Litwiniec

Almost half a century ago, the late Zbigniew Namysłowski proved that kujawiak could go funky*. What happened later in the field of Polish jazz, fertilised by folklore, would be worth books and tribute festivals – but it is still fertile soil waiting for a new sowing.

The Oberkas Travel supergroup – dear viewer/listener, if you are actively interested in music, you know at least 75 percent of its line-up – presents itself as follows:
Driven by their fascination with the traditional old melodies of Central Poland, the musicians have tried to find points of contact between the so-called mazurka rhythms present in the indigenous music of the Polish countryside and the rhythmic world of the West African coast and contemporary American jazz. Based on the so-called oberek rhythms from Radom, Przysucha and Opoczno, the quartet creates a unique blend of improvisation, the dance mysticism of the indigenous oberek, the contemporary sound of jazz and the traditional violin music of Mateusz Niwiński, adopted from the late, greatest rural fiddlers of Central Poland born at the beginning of the 20th century – Józef Zaraś, Józef Kędzierski, Marian Bujak and the Gac brothers.

* Zbigniew Namysłowski Quintet “Kujaviak Goes Funky”, Polskie Nagrania, 1975.

fot. Arek Blomka