Wieleba Lech – Poetic Jazz
In April 2005 the quartet was invited by the Jazz in Olten Society to come to Switzerland for a guest appearance in the Vario-Bar in Olten. Announcing the concert Silvano Luca Gerosa – he was president of the society until 2008 and is now a part-time member of the editorial staff of the Swiss jazz magazine, Jazz 'n' more – wrote that “elements of classical music are fused with jazz with Slavic melodies, thereby creating music that is rare, moving, wonderfully political and lyrical”; and in more detail: “Indeed Poetic Jazz are neither afraid of beautiful dreamy melodies, nor of melancholy tones. It is rare for a jazz band to be so emotional and get under your skin so deeply. This is surely because of the very special line-up of the band featuring Claas Ueberschär’s lyrical flugelhorn. Wieleba’s son, Pawel, is the drummer: more correctly, he does not drum but caresses his instrument. The Polish pianist Vladislav Sendecki, deserves a special mention. He made a name for himself as the pianist in the NDR Big Band and has played with such greats as Jaco Pastorius, Joe Henderson and Billy Cobham.”
In Dezember 2005 the CD “Danzarina” appeared on the market, once again with Klöpfel on the flugelhorn, Vladislav Sendecki on the piano and Pawel Wieleba on the drums. The album contains the first versions of “Dla Ireny” and “Blue Tango Nuevo”. In April 2006 Poetic Jazz made a guest appearance in the Berlin Museum of European Cultures for the “finissage” of an exhibition entitled “Polenbegeisterung. Deutsche and Polen nach dem Novemberaufstand 1830” (English: Enthusiasm for Poland. Germans and Poles after the 1830 November Uprising), that had been presented to mark the German/Polish year 2005/06. On 12th December 2007 the band appeared at a Christmas concert in the Hamburg Laeiszhalle, where it played its “Danzarina” repertoire and extended it with arrangements of music by the Polish composer, Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) who had died seventy years previously. In 2009 the CD “Mazur” was released, subtitled “To poezja bez słów” (English: Poetry without Words). “Mazur” features Enno Dugnus on the piano and contains the first versions of “Zbynio” and “The Dance of the Elves”. The band played a “release tour” through smaller German towns like Lippstadt, Rendsburg, Cloppenburg, Grefrath and Krefeld. In 2010 the band played concerts in towns and cities in northern Germany as well as gigs in Schloss Seefeld in Upper Bavaria and Schloss Rapperswil on Lake Zurich: the latter was the closing concert to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Rapperswil Polish Museum. In 2011 they gave ten concerts throughout the whole of Germany and also appeared on the programme at the Komeda Jazz Festival in Słupsk.
The latest album by Poetic Jazz, “Poetic Jazz Symphonic”, features Claas Ueberschär on the flugelhorn and trumpet, Enno Dugnus on piano, Pawel Wieleba on drums and Lech Wieleba on the double bass. Pawel Wieleba was born in Danzig in 1981. His mother, Ewa Bautembach-Wieleba, works in music education. Whilst Pawel was growing up he learned to play the piano and drums. He studied for three years at the Achtelik & Co music school in Hamburg where he learnt popular music styles from the drummers, Robbie Smith and Lorenz Hoppe. He then played in rock and funk bands before moving over to jazz. In 2009 he completed his studies in “Systematic Music Science” at the University of Hamburg with a thesis on “Concepts of Jazz Drumming”. Enno Dugnus, (born 1959), studied classical piano and trumpet from 1982 to 1987 at the Musikakademie der Stadt Kassel and has lived in Hamburg since 1991. He has contributed to a huge number of theatre shows at places like the Lübeck Theatre and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, as well as being the head of music for productions at the Altonaer Theater in Hamburg and working for theatres in Berlin. Dugnus has his own trio with whom he played compositions by Krzysztof Komeda and rarely heard Brazilian music in the Hamburg Bar Italia in January 2016. Claas Ueberschär, (born 1966), studied at the Hochschule für Musik and Theater in Hannover and the Folkwang Musikhochschule in Essen, where he gained his diploma in 1992. From 1993 to 1995 he was awarded a scholarship by the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst(DAAD) to study at The New School and the Mannes College of Music in New York. At the end of the 90s he moved to Hamburg, since when he has been a fixed part of the jazz scene in the city. He also has his own band, the claasue4 quartet, which features the Polish jazz pianist, Matthäus Winnitzki “ who was born in 1977 in Tychy. In February 2006 the combo brought its second album onto the market.
Axel Feuß, April 2016
Sources:
http://www.poetic-jazz.com, as well as a huge number of web pages on the internet.
We should like to thank Lech Wieleba and Simone Louis for the information and corrections.
Krystyna Danilecka-Wojewódzka / Andrzej Obecny: POETIC JAZZ symfonicznie na Festiwalu Pianistyki Polskiej, in: Moje Miasto, Nummer 18 (269) Słupsk, 27.9.2014, http://www.mojemiasto.slupsk.pl/index.php?id=6840
Silvano Luca Gerosa: Verträumt und melancholisch. Olten. Poetic Jazz gastiert in the Vario-Bar, in: Oltener Tagblatt, 15th April 2005
http://www.filharmonia.gda.pl/pl/repertuar/icalrepeat.detail/2015/04/12/853/-/poetic-jazz
Captions: Lech Wieleba