Saxophonist and composer who, in creating music, most values independence, understood as the multiplicity of paths an artist can follow. He leads his own quartet and octet and is the co-founder of the Malediwy duo and the Wojciech Mazolewski Quintet.
Marek Pospieszalski was born in 1988 in Częstochowa. The city’s energy and mysticism make him seek some degree of spirituality in music to this day. Jazz music was particularly important in his family. His father, Mateusz Pospieszalski, started out in the cult group Tie Break and later became involved in numerous jazz and rock bands, but also created pop and religious pieces. Significantly, Marek, like his father, plays the saxophone, although the latter never pressured his son to learn this particular instrument.
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I don’t know if it mattered at all to my dad whether I would be involved in music, so what instrument I would play was even less important to him. The house was brimming with music, and it was a natural environment for me. That’s why I went to music school of my own accord. I started at the age of six with the piano, but it was several years of unequal struggle with a despotic teacher who discouraged me from continuing my education in this direction. So I started the second level of music school on the clarinet, and that’s when I started picking up my dad’s saxophones, and he didn’t make it difficult for me.
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– Marek Pospieszalski recalls.
The artist does not hide the fact that his musical identity is built on, among other things, his father’s work. However, he adds that he has always tried to derive his own artistic path from these foundations. For this reason, he did scratching and producing hip-hop beats at secondary music school. He also quickly picked up the tenor saxophone – the very instrument his father does not play. ‘Independence is something that drives me all the time’ – he explains. ‘Music is an infinity of possibilities, so it would be silly to repeat someone else’s story.’
Internships in the Maldives
In his artistic search, Marek Pospieszalski quickly turned towards jazz avant-garde and the art of improvisation. He found a partner on this path during his studies, at the Kraków Academy of Music. It was there that he met Qba Janicki – drummer, producer, son of the double bass player and an important figure in the Yass scene, Sławomir Janicki.
At the academy, it reached me that ‘the boy from Bydgoszcz’s Mózg club was looking for me.’ When we finally met, he didn’t make a good impression on me, he seemed smug, arrogant. However, once we started working together, I quickly redefined my view. Qba turned out to be a wonderful, sensitive person.
Years later, Janicki admits that meeting Pospieszalski was the most important thing he owed to his studies at the Academy of Music in Kraków. The jazzmen were quickly united by a similar vision of the world, the reasons for which the saxophonist finds in growing up in musical families, in which the spirit of independence and freedom was important. The community of experiences and the sensitivity that grew out of them made the formation of a joint band seem inevitable.
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Marek Pospieszalski, photo: Szymon Hantkiewicz
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Before this happened, however, the musicians met in a band proposing a different – less avant-garde – take on jazz. On the occasion of the album Polka, Janicki joined the Wojtek Mazolewski Quintet, with whom Pospieszalski had performed since the band’s debut album in 2011. It was the saxophonist who recruited his fellow student into the quintet, in which they both perform to this day.
At the same time, the young saxophonist took part in numerous recordings and other musical initiatives. His instrument can be heard on albums by Power of the Horns (Alaman), Mateusz Pospieszalski Quintet (Tralala) or Kuba Płużek Quartet (Froots), among others. Perhaps that is why the debut of Malediwy (Afroaleatoryzm), the duo formed with Qba Janicki, was only released in 2018. Since then, however, it has held a special significance for the artist.
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When I look back on it now, Malediwy became something of a ‘working band’ for us. As a duo, situations began to crystallise that are reflected in our solo projects on the one hand and in my octet on the other.
In a review of Malediwy’s debut by Piotr Wojdat, published on the Polish Jazz portal, one can read:
Marek Pospieszalski has, thanks to […] the focused playing of the drummer, a big proving ground. He alternates fervent improvisations with outlines of melodic motifs, which are sometimes a counterpoint to what Janicki creates. The energy, spontaneity and great joy of creation burst from the recordings.
It is worth mentioning that the aforementioned release was a recording of a concert in the Bydgoszcz club Mózg. Although its successor was created in the studio and with the help of other tools, the core of this album was also improvisation, which is written into Malediwy’s DNA. On Dolce Tsunami, released in 2020, Pospieszalski and Janicki reach for electrified sounds, but their source is not computerised. The effect is achieved through piezoelectric pickups and feedback induced by guitar amps.
Harvest in Portugal
The year 2022 proved to be a particularly successful time for Marek Pospieszalski, with the release of Polish Composers of the 20th Century, a monumental two-disc publication that the artist realised as a result of a ministerial grant. Pospieszalski and his octet reached for the works of outstanding Polish composers of the 20th century, deliberately omitting the works of those most often mentioned (Penderecki, Górecki, Lutosławski, Kilar).
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I decided to work on small fragments that would be the building blocks for long minimalist forms. Later, as I created more variations, each of the original pieces would suggest to me other elements that were characteristic of the piece. Sometimes it was a rhythm, sometimes a phrase, and sometimes a unique sound which I would use to build the whole.
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– Pospieszalski says.
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Marek Pospieszalski's octet, photo: Łukasz Zyska
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In most cases, the artist did not reach for scores – he was more likely to rely on auditory impressions. In this way, the jazz octet, which also includes Tomasz Dąbrowski (trumpet), Piotr Chęcki (tenor saxophone), Grzegorz Tarwid (piano), Szymon Mika (guitar), Tomasz Sroczyński (violin), Max Mucha (double bass) and Qba Janicki (drums), tackled works by Kotoński, Krauze or Szalonek. The octet leader admits that he prepared his arrangements not even for specific instruments but rather for musical personalities. This was all the more important as the heart of the album turned out to be collective improvisation.
Interestingly, these tracks were originally intended to be published only online – but eventually made it onto an album. What’s more, the album was released by the Portuguese label Clean Feed – undoubtedly one of the most important labels in the world focusing on jazz and improvised music. Pospieszalski makes no secret of the fact that being included in its catalogue was one of his lifelong dreams. He quickly followed up on this dream, and the same year Clean Feed released Dürer’s Mother, an album by the saxophonist-led quartet. In addition to Max Mucha, he is supported here by pianist Elias Stemeseder and drummer Max Andrzejewski. In contrast to the octet recordings, Pospieszalski this time presented fully original compositions:
Each of them was inspired by a particular artist and is dedicated to him. However, I did not want to deprive the listeners of their freedom to interpret the music, so the titles of the pieces refer to them in a very veiled way.
Marek Pospieszalski, who was named one of the 25 most promising European artists by the German magazine Jazz Thing in 2021, plans to cut down on his sideman commitments in the near future and focus on his own work. He is unlikely to run out of ideas. In the near future, he will be releasing his solo album and a second octet release – this time dedicated to Polish female composers. He is also planning to record a third album as Malediwy.
