Polska Jazz | Masecki – Tsalikov – Pieniążek: Monk (PL)

Marcin Masecki, the cult figure of Polish jazz, makes a habit of exploring any musical genre, yet never doing with it what one might expect. After more than a decade of one surprise after another, he has now released an album that perhaps comes closest to the world of traditional jazz records: in a trio setting, he paints his own portrait of one of jazz history’s greatest mavericks, Thelonious Monk.

Masecki first encountered Monk’s music as a teenager whilst studying classical music. “At music school, everyone told me this bloke was a disaster, that he couldn’t hit a single note on the piano. But what I heard moved me deeply. As a classical pianist, one often feels obliged to play lyrically and poetically. Monk, however, regarded the piano as a percussion instrument. He was the one who showed me to follow my own voice, without paying attention to what was technically required of me. “For him, it was all about feeling,” recalled Masecki, who was born in 1982, the very year of Monk’s death. Thelonious Monk was one of the most headstrong artists in the history of jazz; rather than playing standards or technically virtuosic pieces, he created a radically different, introspective branch of bebop. For Masecki, the time has now come to truly immerse himself in Monk’s oeuvre – in true Monkian fashion, as he performs the pieces not with a traditional piano trio, but alongside two cheekily young fellow musicians: Eldar Tsalikov on alto saxophone and clarinet, and Jan Pieniążek on drums. The material was also released on CD in February 2025 by BMC Records.

Photo: István Huszti / BMC