RGG Trio

The piano trio, founded in 2001, is equally at home writing lyrical, deliberate melodies as they are exploring free jazz in all its spontaneity.

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RGG Trio

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RGG Trio, photo: press materials

RGG is a jazz trio formed in 2001 by three then-students of the Jazz Institute at the Music Academy in Katowice. The name of the band comes from the first letters of their last names: Przemysław Raminiak (piano), Maciej Garbowski (double bass) and Krzysztof Gradziuk (drums). After 20 years on stage and 12 recorded albums, RGG enjoys the status of one of the most important Polish piano trios and, for this reason, is even compared to the band of Marcin Wasilewski. What characterises the group is the constant tension between free jazz improvisation and lyrical minimalism closer to the works of Brad Mehldau or pianists from the circle of ECM Record. It's worth noting that RGG has been consistently trying to escape such a dichotomy by recording conceptual albums, inviting guests or reaching for the works of artists from outside the jazz world.

The trio was well received in the jazz community basically from the very beginning. Already in 2003, RGG won significant awards, including first place in a competition organised by the Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa festival, pivotal for their path. Thanks to this triumph, the band could record their debut album. In the same year, Scandinavia was released by Polskie Radio Katowice. The artists admitted to being inspired by jazz from the northern reaches of Europe. At this stage, their most influential musical guide was the Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson. Years later, in an interview with Kajetan Prochyra from portal Jazzarium.pl, Garbowski admitted that listening to his album Serenity helped RGG explore the idea of improvisation better.

Three stories plus ‘One’

Later that year, RGG received their first major award outside of Poland. The trio won second prize and an Audience Prize at the XXVII International Jazz Festival in Getxo (Spain). Despite the acclaim, the band did not rest on their laurels and soon started working on an album, which gave rise to a musical trilogy. In 2004, the album Straight Story was released. This time, the title referred to the film world, more specifically to David Lynch's dramas. Indeed the music recorded on this record has an illustrative potential. It is reserved by nature, built on nuances and pauses. In the pages of Jazz Forum, Robert Buczek wrote about the trio's second album:

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RGG, although made up by young people, plays fully mature, thought-out music, in which composition and improvisation, playing solo and as a unit, are balanced with clockwork precision. 'Straight Story' can give a lot of satisfaction to the advocates of romantic reflection, elusiveness and delicacy.

The trio's third album was preceded by a three-year recording break, simultaneously the longest break in RGG's history. However, the band came back from it with one of the most acclaimed albums in their catalogue. The inspiration for Unfinished Story – Remembering Kosz was a cassette found by accident by Raminiak with the recordings of a blind, tragically deceased pianist Mieczysław Kosz. On the RGG album, there were only two pieces written by him and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances, which he was fond of performing. Other compositions were written by RGG members or improvised in the studio. Grzegorz Dusza expressed his excitement in Audio magazine:

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The dramaturgy of the album draws the listener in and will not allow one to do anything else. I enjoy the interactions, the exchange of ideas, the mutual inspiration of musicians who are curious what else can be done in a field so heavily exploited as the jazz piano trio.

The journalist was not alone in his admiration. Unfinished Story – Remembering Kosz was named ‘Jazz Record of the Year’ by the Rzeczpospolita daily and Jazz Radio.

In 2009, RGG closed their trilogy with the double album True Story – In Two Acts. This time, the trio offered the listeners an almost entirely improvised record. Raminiak, Garbowski and Gradziuk working in a spontaneous, intuitive way, sharing their sensitivity and inspirations with their listeners, which ranged from Duke Ellington to James Brown. Such diversity was emphasised even more by critics on the occasion of the trio's next album, One, released to celebrate the band's 10th anniversary and greeted with enthusiastic reviews. On the occasion of the premiere, the musicians themselves admitted that after the more difficult improvised predecessor, they decided to offer the listeners some catchier and more memorable melodies. Reviewers also paid attention to the perfection of the trio's performance. Its strength was said to lie in, amongst other things, the lack of a leader whose instrument would dominate over the rest. In Jazz Forum, Maciej Karłowski wrote:

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'One' is a very well-played, well-arranged album and is both an excellent summary of the ten years so far and, I believe, also a harbinger of the years to come.

Changes

What Karłowski could not have foreseen was the upcoming personnel change. Przemysław Raminiak left the trio and was replaced by Łukasz Ojdana, whom the musicians met at Jazz Camping Kalatówki in 2011. The young pianist immediately faced a difficult challenge because, on the next album, RGG decided to reinterpret the work of one of the greatest Polish composers: Karol Szymanowski. In an interview with the monthly magazine Audio, Krzysztof Gradziuk recalled:

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[...] we had five compositions written out from start to finish. Naturally, with space for individual interpretations by each of us. The remaining themes had so-called legends, that is, phrases that we developed during the studio sessions.

RGG's seventh album also introduced a change, although of a different sort. Aura was released on the much deserved American jazz label Okeh. It was a testimony to the trio's growing international recognition. It also ensured them global distribution. In an interview with Maciej Nowak of Jazz Forum, the musicians defined their path as follows: ‘We are aiming together towards contemporary improvised chamber music, albeit with full respect for tradition.’

Free jazz, memories and the moon

The following three RGG recordings again are a sort of a trilogy. What these albums have in common is their improvised and collaborative character. RGG is joined here by the greats of the European free jazz scene. All three albums were also released by the label Fundacja Słuchaj! The first of them, Live@Alchemia, is a documentation of the trio's concert in Krakow with famous British saxophonist Evan Parker. Rafa, released a year later, is a recording of a Gdańsk meeting with another saxophone giant – Trevor Watts. The year 2018 also brought RGG's 10th album that was recorded as a quintet. During the 12th Silesian Jazz Festival, the musicians were accompanied by trombonist Samuel Blaser and trumpeter Verneri Pohjola. The result of this meeting is entitled City of Gardens.

Those familiar with RGG and its catalogue could have predicted that after three improvised albums, the trio would offer a more lyrical recording to its listeners. Especially since the trio released it in the well-deserved, although more mainstream, ‘Polish Jazz’ publishing series. As the musicians explain, Memento is a reminiscence of what the trio members have been doing for the three years that have passed since their previous studio album. That included participation in the recording of singer Anna Gadt's album, concerts with the aforementioned European free jazz greats and a two-year collaboration with the eminent trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, who died in 2018. RGG dedicated the piece Hombre con Sombrero to his memory.

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‘Memento’ returns to the aesthetics of 'Aura', definitely calmer than what the trio presented in the period between the two releases.

Author

Jakub Krukowski in ‘JazzPress’

The musicians celebrated the band's 20th anniversary with another album. Whilst working on it, the musicians looked up to the sky. The album Mysterious Monuments On The Moon brought unexpected encounters with the works of the famous science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem and the actor Robert Więckiewicz. Thus, RGG sent everyone a signal that they shouldn't lack inspiration during the next decade either.