DEBRA RICHARDS: Marcin Masecki considers that he has two parents, jazz and classical music. As a pianist, he is steeped in the tradition of learning piano as a young child with all the purity and precision that comes with that. In this interview, you get the sense of how that triggered Marcin’s disruptive streak, and how that has been central to his approach to music. There is reverence and intellectual rebellion.
Like many accomplished musicians, there is music in his family. Marcin has spoken of his grandmother teaching him piano exercises, and it was on her vintage Steinway that he recorded his album, Die Kunst der Fuge: Bach/Masecki, with a dictaphone. Yes, with a dictaphone. In fact, this is a key point, because Marcin’s appreciation of the imperfect, the broken, and the cult of the Lo Fi is what brings his soulfulness and natural feel for music to the fore. Such qualities can set musicians apart. Marcin has worked in many contexts, and there's a clear sense from his career, that it's important for him to be free to change his setup. He has recorded solo in a duo and sextet, in bands of nine and 10, as well as big bands. He's released classical jazz and alternative pop music, and even an album of Polish Carols sung in Arabic.
In this interview, he focuses on his album of Polonaises. Using a 10 piece band, Marcin hoped to integrate this historical national dance of Poland with jazz and a bit of attitude, once again, bringing forward his appreciation of the defective and the unsettling. There is a picture of the complex journey this musician is on, one in which he continually challenges himself again and again. It's a fascinating insight into this artist.
MARCIN MASECKI: My name is Marcin Masecki. I'm a pianist, composer, musician, keyboard lover, professionally, among others.
This is an album that we recorded in 2012, we had a chat with, with Jan Bernat, a friend of mine who was director of a festival in Lublin, in eastern Poland, and the subject of the Polonaise came up. It was the Polish national dance and it has this patriotic ring to it. And it's danced in this kind of ball before the graduation ceremony in high school.
Yeah, it's a very popular rhythm kind of runs in our blood, let's say, but curiously undeveloped, or like unused modernly because maybe because of this, because it's such a symbol has a historic ring to it. That's kind of interesting. I thought that inspired me to compose modern Lee, in this idiom. And I put together a 10 piece Brass Band. It's actually eight brass instruments, drums and piano, following my love of brass instruments. And then we premiered it in the festival of Jan Bernat in Lublin. And then we went into the studio and recorded it.
I had a lot of faith in this project, I was proud of it. And I thought it's a bridge between many different worlds. I'm a jazz musician, and I'm a classical musician. These are my parents, let's say European classical music and jazz. And I thought this would be interesting for the folk, you know, lovers for classical music lovers as well, because it's the Polonaise being, you know, in Poland, linked with Chopin and with the classical tradition, and also with jazz since we jazz it up a lot, and it's brass and saxophones, and there's a lot of improvisation. I was hoping that we would play a lot and that we would have a lot of response or a lot of demand, let's say. But no! That didn't happen. And I'm not sure exactly what the reason. I mean, you know, there is always so many variables to success or not success, it's always so random, actually. But I think it was because it was a bit of everything, it was not enough of anything at the same time, and therefore difficult to market, difficult to process, difficult to sell. We played 10 concerts, I would say, not
more. And then the next project came up, and then it kind of went to sleep, that project, but it has a special place in my heart. That's why I'm talking about it today.
The album has many, many layers that I think are not immediately audible, it kind of sounds like you play it and I think it kind of sounds for the first few minutes like a bunch of freaks, who kind of barely know how to play. But there's actually a lot of work went into it and a lot of intention. And there are many, the compositions are quite complex and a lot of references you know, and, and it didn't work.
I like Lo Fi sounds, I have this relationship with a little upright piano also that I carry with myself often. So I liked the, the imperfect. Around the same time, I remember I recorded Bach’s Art Of the Fugue cycle, you know, on a proper Steinway, but with a cassette dictaphone from the 80s with one of these Panasonic cheap things. And, and so I started experimenting with Lo Fi and classical music where it doesn't exist, actually. And that was very satisfying. And then I stayed with it. You know, I'm not a retro maniac, I wouldn't classify myself that way. Like I don't wear old clothes, you know, and I don't think the world used to be better than it is now. But I'm drawn to this imperfect thing, I think, probably because largely, you know, I am classical musician. And in the classical world, it's taboo. So it's just so tempting, you know, when they say don't move the piano, because you can't touch the piano because it will get out of tune. And you just know, the child in me, just really wants to touch it. You know, the world of classical music is so stuck up
and so stiff, that it's just begging for it to flip things around a little bit. And the and also the brass band. I liked the sound of it. I liked the drunk brass, the imperfect drunk brass sound, which we worked a lot on. So you know, it may sound like it's old and crap, but it's actually very specifically prepared.
And also, after when I came back from Berkeley College of Music, I was a proper jazz pianist. And I fell into a group of artists centered around the small label called LADO ABC. And these guys were a huge inspiration for me, and they were not jazz centered, let's say, it was a family of different instrumentalists and singers with different backgrounds. More punkish than not, there was also a lot of Zappa spirit, you know, and kind of jokey, jokey, clowny stuff. And it has stayed with me, I'm further away from Zappa by now, like, that joke also has dried for me. But the contestative spirit, let's say, I don't know if you can say that. But maybe it's not the aesthetic of error anymore. But the aesthetic of... it's maybe not so blunt anymore. But I'm still, at 40 years of age, I'm still very much interested in asking questions, and not receiving answers.
So in my compositions, and when I'm giving stuff to the audience, I like to trust them to use their imagination and to figure things out by themselves and to arrive at whatever interpretation they want. Because it's more risky, let's say that way. Like if you don't give everything the other side, can do more with their interpretation, but I like that. I like that dialogue, let's say.
I do a lot of different things. So it's not one line. You know, we have our band from the last five years with Jan Młynarski, our jazz band Młynarsk/Masecki. We perform Polish jazz music from the 20s and 30s. And that's much more, let's say, available and much more direct music. You know, it's songs pretty simple songs, often about love. So sometimes I do that, you know, sometimes they play a Mozart piano concerto. That's also quite obvious, let's say. But sometimes we play an improvised set and nobody knows what's happening and neither do we. So the variety of things that I do impedes a full one phrase diagnosis, let's say of how it works.
In the case of these Polonaises, I think it's almost like you can almost dance to it, but then you can't. And then you can almost follow it, but not really. And then it just becomes too weird. And... but it's not really that weird. It's like you can almost sing it. So it's right in between all those approaches to music that I have. And that's why maybe I cherish it so much. So this is a piece that's quite long. The Polonaise is bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, it's a rhythm in three. And it's a very pompous kind of march-ish. It's like a march-in three almost.
And this Polonaise uses the element of surf rock in its beat. So I can't really show that on the piano. But it starts with a baritone. Outlining the three four rhythm and then the drums come in with this with this thing that we have to play from from the recording. The first title of it was “Surf”, actually. So it's an allusion to surf rock somehow. And then it has this theme with the clarinets which is quite dissonant and quite folkish.
And it grows... it grows, it grows, it grows until the piano comes in. And that actually takes a few minutes. But the pulse of the surf rock I think is pretty cool. And then there's this... in the middle... there's a section that starts by the baritone saxophone playing this and then slowly one by one more instruments come in is quite a simple concept. That's the
tenor saxophone. And whenever the next instrument wants to come in, they come in and then so so slowly it becomes more more...
And it becomes quite dense until in this climax these trumpets come in with quite fanfare-ic craze. And on and on and it sounds to me now a little bit like Shostakovich, you know, like a huge kind of bunch of grotesque tanks approaching somehow. Yeah, and then it goes off, then the drums cut in, quite brutally. And there's a baritone sax solo, which leads to a wrapping up phrase. I'm sorry to say I can't I can't do justice to it on a piano. It really needs this pulsing drums and the drunk brass band.
I like how obvious it is that it's a Polonaise, but super well camouflaged. It's very unpolonaise-y, but actually it is. And I've danced to it alone at home. And also it has a lot of references to classical music and to old classical music. And by that I mean like a long narrative. It develops very slowly out of out of this out of this motif kind of like Beethoven symphonies, you know, motivic development of small motifs moved in different harmonies modulated and condensed, so I was proud I remember when I compose it I was proud of how kind of legit it is almost academically, you know, legit that it's the form is correct of it and it still sounds like a freak show.
My name is Marcin Maceski and this is Deuxieme Grand Polonaise, check it out.
[MUSIC: Deuxieme Grand Polonaise]