Interview with Marek Pospieszalski

 

Marek Pospieszalski was born in Częstochowa, Poland. He began his musical education at the age of 6. At first, he played the piano and later switched to clarinet. Both his musical family and environment focused around Tie Break band, where his father plays, had a huge impact on his development.

He chose saxophone as his main instrument after his father. At the age of 17 he started playing in trumpeter Antoni Gralak's band and since then he has been continuously functioning as a musician. He graduated from the Music Academy in Cracow.

He is the leader of his own quartet (with Elias Stemeseder, Maks Mucha and Max Andrzejewski), which released two albums: "Marek Pospieszalski gra piosenki, które śpiewał Frank Sinatra”,

and "Dürer’s Mother” (Clean Feed)

By the prestigious German magazine JazzThing, he was selected as one of the 25 most promising musicians in Europe. Together with Tomasz Sroczyński he recorded and released an album "Bareness".

He plays in a duo with Qba Janicki called Malediwy. He is a member of Wojtek Mazolewski Quintet,

Kuba Płużek's quartet and Mateusz Pospieszalski's quintet.

His musical foundation consists of improvised and experimental music, contemporary jazz, nevertheless,

he is open and draws from any musical genre; as demonstrated by his cooperation with hip hop, electronic, rock and pop artists. He played on dozens of festivals in Japan, China, India, U.S.A., Norway, Sweden, England, Ireland, France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Croatia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, Romania and Greece.

As a session musician he participated in dozens of radio and television concerts as well as album recordings. He cooperated with artists such as: Dennis Gonzalez, Marco Eneidi, Kaja Draksler, Paul Dunmall, Joanna Duda, Oskar Törok, Piotr Damasiewicz, Maciej Obara, Janusz Yanina Iwański, Krzysztof Knittel, Paweł Kaczmarczyk, Nikola Kołodziejczyk, Rafał Mazur, Jerzy Mazzoll, Igor BOXX

• There is always a certain point in a musician’s life that prompts her/him to make a conscious decision to start with music and its creation. What and when was it in your case?

I've always wanted to do music. It was a natural environment for me because my father is a musician. I don't really know any other way to live. Since I was a child, I was surrounded by musicians, I had the opportunity to observe concerts, during the holidays we would go on tour with my dad, and sometimes he even engaged us in recordings in the studio to sing something. All this was happening even before I started going to school and it gave me a sense of freedom and independence and I think that's what made me not even think about doing anything else. Music is asylum.

• You are classically trained musician. How did it affect your need for experimentation and improvisation?

The education program in state primary music schools in Poland is mostly based on classical music.

This is of course great, because it allows you to come into contact with the great literature of classical music and makes you build a great technical skill, but in the days when I was studying, the teachers still had the ancient view that when you wanted to do something outside the program, they reacted badly to it, so it was a great trigger to rebel and reach for improvised music. Improvisation was a natural need for me, a desire to tell my own story. In addition, the habitat in which I moved at home showed me many other musical paths. Later, at the academy, I studied jazz, but the teaching system there was completely different from how I perceive music.

• How does a collaborative work feel to you and what do you do to use it enrich your own voice in music?

For me, the most important influence has always been being with other musicians and learning from each other, musical discoveries, mutual inspiration etc. It gave me the drive to act. In my opinion, this is the most important thing, more important than any school. I am able to admit that I steal something for myself from everyone I work with and build my own musical identity from it. Apart from musical issues, it is very important for me to feel good among the people I work with, maybe that's why I work with my friends in most of the bands I play. The amount of shared experiences later generates completely different things when playing music. You can reach areas that are normally inaccessible.

• One of your albums “Polish Composers of the 20th Century” beautifully sums up the goldmine of the Polish composers’ work. Where did you get the idea to create this gem?

The music of Polish composers has always been close to my heart, but originally the idea of taking their work under the microscope was born without much emotion when I was writing the application for the scholarship, but when I started working on the project, step by step it became more and more addictive and fascinating for me. How to extract this one thing from such a vast amount of creativity, each of the twelve composers? After all, this is the infinity of music, you could spend your whole life working on such a project! How to put everything together so that it is consistent with each other? Despite this overwhelming prospect, I managed to find concepts. Since I was dealing with endless matter, I decided to condense everything into a minimalist way of playing that would correlate with the music genres of today.

When I started to break down great works into prime factors, it turned out that many elements functioning there are flourishing today in many genres of electronic music, etc. We don't even realize how much the music of these composers influenced the shape of today's music. The second thing that allowed me to shape the whole musically was the composition of the band. I've wanted to create this big band for a long time and this was a great opportunity. The participation of each of these musicians is not accidental. From the beginning, I assumed that this lineup would be co-created by specific characters Qba Janicki, Max Mucha, Tomasz Sroczyński, Grzegorz Tarwid, Szymon Mika, Piotr Chęcki, Tomasz Dąbrowski. The music I wrote was created specifically for their musical personalities. This defined what the project was supposed to look like.

• What inspires you in the field of music – especially in jazz and modern contemporary genre?

There is always something new in music to discover. If someone says that everything has already been done in music, it means that they approach it very superficially. In Music, I am still attracted to something that has not been there before, going beyond conventions, honesty over technical skills, and truth. I follow music news all the time, but there is still a lot to discover in music from years ago, sometimes even in a space so close to you where it seemed that you already knew everything. I like how someone relates to history, but not when they try to imitate someone, but when they create a new quality on the basis of history, it's a great skill.

• How does the digital distribution and the recent pandemic affect your identity – in both positive and negative way?

New operating conditions are always an inspiration to create new forms of expression. We live in a time when everything is transforming and of course leaving the old order behind is always a bit scary, but it allows a new force to come in that can become invigorating. Streamings in and of themselves are not bad. Evil are the companies that manage them in such a way. Everything happened very quickly and the world didn't have enough time to legally tame it, but I think it's a temporary situation that sooner or later will be resolved and the artists will receive their due remuneration. The pandemic, apart from the deadly virus, introduced total chaos, disinformation and divided communities, but after years of living in a constant race, it allowed me to slow down and reevaluate my priorities, it drew my attention to things that are really important.

• Plans for the near and far future?

Now I accumulate all my strength in my own projects. I left some bands where I was a sideman and devote myself to my own concepts. My priority now is the Octet with which an album recorded at the Sacrum Profanum Festival will be released this year This time dedicated to Polish women composers, and finally my solo album and the third album of the duet Malediwy with Qba Janicki (but there will also be a few guests on this album.) I also hope that I will be able to work more intensively with my quartet, and besides, I have new ideas every day. It would be great to have the time and opportunity to do them all.