Each year since 2004 the 12 Points Festival has brought together its pick of Europe's top jazz talent in a networking event aimed at promoting emerging artists among the festival bookers and media across the continent. This year Maciej Obara joins the roster, with skill honed at the side of Polish jazz legend Tomasz Stańko, recording music for the New Balladyna Quartet. Today he's come into his own, representing a new generation of jazz.
The group features Obara on the saxophone, together with pianist Dominik Wania, bassist Maciej Garbowski and drummer Krzysztof Gradziuk. 12 Points calls their signature "unmistakable, full of beautifully rendered introspection, and Noirish themes that tentatively give way to swinging forms, swelling and receding through organic group understanding". The quartet released an album entitled Equilibrium, which premiered at Poland's Jazztopad Festival in the autumn of 2011 - an event affiliated with the 12 Points initiative. The band is scheduled to perform at 12 Points on the 18th of February at 9:00 p.m. in Porto, Portugal. The festival sets up in a different European city each year and there is a strong possibility that Wrocław may get to host the next edition.
Maciej Obara emphasises the networking aspects of the event and says the band is looking forward to "going to Porto to meet others, reduce the distance between us, to have time to have fun, listen to each other, see how the music sounds in other European countries". After 12 Points, Maciej Obara and bassist Maciej Garbowski will go on to London to take part in the Take 5 Europe event that brings together musicians and encourages them to create new ideas and projects for future festivals. Obara says they are planning new music for a workshop with John Surman, which they will perform on tour later this year throughout France, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Norway at such events as Molde and the London Jazz Festival.
The 12 Points Festival takes place at the Casa de Musica in Porto between the 16th-19th of February, 2012. Maciej Obara Quartet is scheduled to perform on February 18 at 9:00 p.m. A detailed programme of the festival and more information can be found at www.12points.ie.
Hear more music from the band at maciejobara.com
Source: culture.pl, www.rp.pl, 12points.ie