Last week, Darek Oleszkiewicz released a new album entitled “The Promise.” The album is a tribute to the music of John Coltrane, in acoustic solo bass arrangements. The album is now available on all digital platforms including: Spotify, Amazon, and iTunes. Streaming and downloading is available here. An additional viewing of the album is featured on YouTube.
A native of Poland, Darek Oleszkiewicz is an arranger, composer, pedagogue, and jazz bassist. At a young age, Oleszkiewicz studied music education at the State Music School in Wrocław. Throughout his career, Oleszkiewicz (also known as Darek ‘Oles’) has been recognized for his talents and received a nomination for the Fryderyk Award (Poland’s Grammy award) in the category of “Jazz Musician of the Year” (2003). He was also voted the “Best Acoustic Bassist” in the Jazz Top readers’ poll in Jazz Forum European Magazine (2005). Oleszkiewicz has performed in collaboration with many notable artists such as Brad Mehldau, Jan Ptaszyń Wroblewski, Billy Higgins, Krzesimir Dębski, Pat Metheny and many more. He is on the faculty of UC Irvine and the USC Thornton School of Music, and has performed numerous times at the Paderewski Festival in Paso Robles.
[Sources: press release, music.usc.edu ]