OLBRZYM I KURDUPEL
Behind the humorous moniker (“giant and pipsqueak”) lurks a truly explosive amount of free jazz energy. Its creators, tenor saxophonist Tomasz Gadecki and bassist Marcin Bożek – could easily be called resident aliens of the Polish improv scene. They’ve certainly earned the title. As Łukasz Komła of nowamuzyka.pl vividly describes, the musicians can be seen on stage wearing “outfits resembling painters’ aprons (…) The white protective clothing lets them turn into living screens, which provide a background for the light show at their concerts”. They use only two instruments, but they milk them for all they’ve got.
Alchemia’s audiences are quite familiar with these two musicians. Their performance at the club last year was a recap of their years of working together, and can be found on the album Work (Kilogram Records), which came out towards the end of winter.
TOMASZ GADECKI
According to the artist himself, he started his musical adventure playing the trombone in a parish brass band. The Gdynia-born artist eventually switched to the saxophone; the results of his first fascination with jazz was the band SŁOŃ (which he founded with friends from school), and a duet with Piotr Mania. Later on, in 2006, Gadecki’s band Bikomutant won a contest for alternative bands organized by Alchemia. He has collaborated with improvisation artists such as Jacek Mazurkiewicz, Marcin Dzidzia Zabrodzki, Mikołaj Trzaska, Tomasz Sowiński and Rafał Mazur. He also had a hand in recording the soundtrack to Wojciech Smarzowski’s Pod Mocnym Aniołem (The Mighty Angel). Apart from the duet Olbrzym i Kurdupel, Gadecki formed Sambar with Paulina Owczarek, which debuted with the albumMelt!
MARCIN BOŻEK
The artist was born in 1979. He graduated from the Jazz Department at the Academy of Music in Katowice. The bassist describes his work with Olbrzym i Kurdupel as “translating emotion into music”. He even coined the term emo improv, because none of the existing terms seemed to fit. Bożek also teaches bass guitar and collaborates with the Musical Theatre in Gdynia. He likes to improvise while contemplating paintings or accompanying actors, when he can play while listening to the narration.
