Formal Jazz From Polish Quartet

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31943, 21 March 1969, Page 12

Formal Jazz From Polish Quartet

It was a night for purists at the Polish jazz concert in the Civic Theatre last evening. The Zbigniew Namyslowski Quartet and the Novi Singers, here for the National Jazz Festival at Tauranga at Easter, presented a very formal programme and threw very few crumbs to the low-brows.

Their musicianship was of a high order, and the quartet drew its tunes from the works of Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk as well as from the group’s own compositions. The musicians are as formal as their music. They obviously take their jazz seriously, and there was no attempt to duplicate the bonhomie and informality of the American jam session. Dressed in immaculate din-

ner suits and gleaming patent leather shoes, their only concession to “show biz” was their longish hair and shirt ruffles —plus a little mild clowning from Gernard Kawka, the leader and musical arranger of the Novi Singers. The Novi Singers sang in a sort of jazz Esperanto—not Polish or English but an internationally acceptable language of “do dum de doo” and “beh hub bub de ba bub” that could be bent to any tune. Their harmonising was superb and they showed themselves to be capable of a wide range of sounds, using their voices like musical instruments. For their only song in English—“ Hello Dolly”—the Novi Singers surprised the audience by introducing it with two violins and a flute. All four are graduates of the Warsaw Advanced Music School, and are accomplished instrumentalists. The house was less than full, but the audience were obviously mainly afficiandos. They called for two encores and it took the house lights to persuade them to go home.