Although Szpura has not attended any music school, up to now, at the age of 34 he has already played with such masters as: Peter Brotzmann, Pheeroan akLaff, Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell, and Maria Raducanu. Moreover, one can dare to say that in 2013 Paweł Szpura was the most sought-after sideman in Poland: the list of his collaborators seems never ending.
Szpura's style is distinctive. Rooted in rock from the sixties and the seventies, his rhythm is a kind of a weave between various, and often very distant, musical heritages: rock, free jazz, Arabic, African, Turkish, Jewish, Romanian... Paweł Szpura’s extraordinary talent allows him not only to compile these traditions – to braid them into a cohesive entity – but at the same time lets him react naturally and astonishingly quickly with other artists.
In 2012, Szpura – along with a group of other young Polish musicians – had the definitive honour of playing in the chamber music orchestra Arche New Music Ensemble on Nicole Mitchell’s album Arc of O (Rouge Art). Together with Cufunkt and Hamid Drake he performed during Kraków Jazz Autumn 2013. The concert was recorded and released as an album entitled Seven Lines. As many musicians at the moment, Szpura also performs on special occasions, such as the 10th Jubilee of the Planete + DOC Film Festival or “UkraPol” concert last year.
