About True Tone Festival 2024 | LINE-UP | TICKETS

This year, the festival will open with Quintet Wojtek Mazolewski. The quintet’s first release dates back to 2011, while the leader himself made his debut as a ten-year-old in 1986. Wojtek Mazolewski first fell in love with punk music, and shortly after, jazz entered his life. Merging jazz with punk rock, Mazolewski contributed to the creation of yass (a new subgenre), which nurtured subsequent generations of experimental-minded musicians. It is these artists whom we have been inviting to our festival from the very beginning. WMQ will present a program dedicated to spiritual jazz, which emerged in the 1960s in the United States, thanks to muziscians like John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, and Sun Ra.

In Gliwice, for the first time in Poland, Maxime Denuc will perform to showcase his work from the album „Nachthorn,” released in 2022. Using a MIDI controller, he created a synthesizer based on pipe organs located in the Church of St. Anthony in Düsseldorf. The album, based on repetitions, encompasses various genres: electronic music, ambient, minimalism, experimental music, classical, contemporary, and even dub techno, all produced using a single instrument. „Nachthorn” was also selected as the soundtrack for the Haute-Couture Chanel Spring-Summer 2023 collection show. In Maxime Dunec’s case, we are abandoning the traditional division of the stage and the audience. The concert will take place in the center of the Victoria Ruins Theater using a quadraphonic sound system.

The artists invited to True Tone share so much that it’s impossible to list all the commonalities, but one of them is undoubtedly the trend known as American minimalism (early 1960s), which brings to mind names like Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Michael Nyman. The principles of this trend in contemporary music, characterized by rhythm, repeatability, and drawing from Asian and African cultures, continue to inspire musicians worldwide to this day. One such artist is Akusmi, alias Pascal Bideau, a French composer of film and television advertisement music based in London. Associated with the new label Tonal Union, he has released two albums: „Fleeting Future” in 2022 and „Lines” in 2023. His performance is a solo show, where the musician uses many acoustic (guitar, saxophone, gongs) and electronic instruments (synthesizer, computer), passing them through loopers to create the effect of a multi-member band on stage. This will be Akusmi’s first concert in our country.

William’s Things is a project founded by Michał Górczyński, Sean Palmer, and Tomasz Wiracki. Lately, Michał Górczyński has been most often seen with the group Bastarda. William’s Things, from the beginning (3 albums), has found inspiration in poetry. Initially William Blake’s, then Henry David Thoreau’s, and on their latest release, „The Robots Are Coming,” which the musicians will present live to us on May 26th at the Victoria Ruins Theater, we will hear poetry by Kyle Dargan and M. Vincent van Mechelen, born poets of the late 20th century. Their music combines dignified, chordal piano playing with trance-like, powerful contrabass clarinet and incredibly charismatic vocals.

Bastarda, mentioned earlier, will also appear at the True Tone Festival. We hosted Bastarda twice in Gliwice in 2022, and during the first edition of True Tone, the group’s leader, Paweł Szamburski, performed, presenting the album „Ceratitis Capitata.” Bastarda draws from contemporary, ancient, folk, and world music repertoire. Their original approach and powerful sound (we’re talking about clarinets and cellos) position the group as one of the most original bands in Poland. Their work is characterized by darkness, gloom, and heaviness, likely influenced by the leader’s early fascination with metal music, aiming to create their own unique sound. This year, Bastarda will present us with material from their newest album, soon to be released – „X” – an album dedicated to 20th-century Polish film composers.

Jazzpospolita is another band that goes against trends and associations. Over 15 years, the band has recorded 8 albums, balancing between genres such as post, avant-garde, trans, prog, soft, hard, rock, ambient, minimalism, and trip-hop. All their albums are characterized by harmony, dynamism, sensitivity, and melodiousness, making the group one of the most original in the country. The last time Jazzpospolita performed in Gliwice was in 2015 during the Jazz in Ruins festival. Since then, the band has released 4 albums, with each one surpassing the previous.

From the planet Versus, Hoshii will fly to the True Tone Festival. Hoshii is the new project of Kuba Więcek, whose demo was initially created as an electronic beat, then expanded into a collaboration with Max Mucha (bass), Grzegorz Tarwid (synthesizers), and Miłosz Berdzik (drums). Kuba Więcek is currently the most talented, original, and busiest young saxophonist in Poland. Besides jazz, he ventures into hip-hop, pop, and poetry. When he returns to jazz, he transforms it uniquely, nothing like anything else, and when he joins the best team for deconstruction and assembly, we get a beautiful, melodic album that is entirely unpredictable.

If we think of planets, our program wouldn’t be complete without Siema Ziemia. The group consists of well-known musicians from the contemporary jazz, hip-hop, and alternative scenes: Kacper Krupa (Łona x Konieczny X Krupa, Skalpel Big Band, Hania Rani Live Band, Fanfara Awantura), Paweł Stachowiak (EABS, Błoto, Satvrn), Adam Konieczny (Łona x Konieczny x Krupa, Oly.), and Fryderyk Szulgit. Siema Ziemia is an electro-acoustic quartet drawing from electronic music genres like breakbeat, techno, and footwork/juke, combining them with jazz improvisation. Their last tour included stops in France, England, and the Czech Republic.

In similar, electronic realms, the duo Pędziwiatr / Rak, musicians associated with the EABS and Błoto groups, create their music. Their joint project (synthesizers, percussion) is called Zima Stulecia. It’s an experimental electronic music heavily influenced by club music, such as house and deep house. They are also inspired by film music, classical music, and television commercials. Adding improvisation and energy, their concert will be hard to stand still at, let alone sit down.

There will also be socially engaged music in our program, which finds its nourishment in climate and economic disaster, war, and societal polarization. This is the theme of the work under the label Ninja Episkopat, created by artists from the jazz and independent scenes: Alex Clov – saxophone, electronics, vocals (Niechęć, The Afronauts), Patrycja Wybrańczyk – percussion (O.N.E., P.E.S.H), Igor Wiśniewski – guitar (EKUZ). On their EP „God Save The Queer” in 2022 and their debut album „All Thoughts Are Bad Thoughts” in 2023, we’ll hear what has been happening in Poland and the islands in recent years, with jazz merging with rock and electronics in a way that quickens the pulse and fogs up the glasses.

The name Błoto has already been mentioned twice here. At the first True Tone edition, we hosted EABS, and at the second, EABS met JAUBI, so organizing a Błoto concert was only a matter of time. Marek „Latarnik” Pędziwiatr (keyboards), Marcin Rak (drums), Olaf Węgier (saxophone), and Paweł Stachowiak (bass) are the four musicians who currently lead the new wave of jazz-related music in Poland, as well as abroad (The Guardian ranked „In Search Of A Better Tomorrow” 6th in the category of best albums of 2023 in the „World Music” category). Despite having the same musicians, the difference between Błoto and EABS is immense. Błoto is primarily minimalist, inspired by psychedelia, hip-hop grooves, electronic experiments à la Herbie Hancock, and Miles Davis’ album „Bitches Brew.” Their commitment to global issues (the fate of the planet, growing nationalism, social divisions, hate speech, political arrangements) is the main building block of their unsettling, gritty, and violent creativity.