On July 7, Polish jazz pianist Kuba Stankiewicz and bassist Darek “Oles” Oleszkiewiczpaid a visit to the Polish Music Center (pictured above). Although the two are long friends of the PMC, this was not merely a social call—they were eager to dig into the PMC’s archival collection for rare printings and original manuscripts of music by Henryk Wars, whose jazz tunes will be featured on their next recording. While visiting, they sat down with PMC Assistant Director Krysta Close for tea and a chat about their recent projects.
To watch a video excerpt of the discussion, visit www.youtube.com.
This most recent album of Wars music is the third in a series, which also includes surveys of two other Poles (or Polish-Americans) who spent significant periods of their careers writing music for Hollywood: Victor Young and Bronisław Kaper. The PMC holds archives of manuscripts, printed music and photos for both Kaper and Wars, and this resource has been invaluable for Stankiewicz in the deep research he has conducted for these albums. It was here that he discovered, among other gems, the sheet music for “Blue Lovebird”—a tune he had previously only heard in performance and then transcribed by ear. It was also the contents of the Wars archives and PMC Director Zebrowski’s knowledge of the Wars family history that had inspired him to pursue the current Wars recording.
While in Los Angeles to record during the first few days of July, Stankiewicz and Oleszkiewicz not only explored Wars’s hand-written scores at the PMC, but also had the chance to perform his music for living members of the Wars family and even play the composer’s own piano. All of this personal experience and research was poured into the recording process, thus informing fresh and lively interpretations of Wars’s well-known tunes, both those written in Poland and the US—including the theme to the movie Flipper!
Made possible with support from the City of Wrocław, where Stankiewicz and Oleszkiewicz first became friends as children, the Wars album is scheduled for release by the end of 2016. On the recording, Stankiewicz and Oleszkiewicz were joined by another excellent musician—two-time Grammy Award winning drummer Peter Erskine. For years, Erskine and Oleszkiewicz have performed mostly original music together as a part of the POEM Quartet, along with their fellow members of the USC Thornton School of Music faculty Alan Pasqua and Bob Mintzer. Given this history and what Oleszkiewicz called “musical empathy,” when he, Stankiewicz and Erskine came together on their first recording project of music by Victor Young, the results were simply magical. They subsequently brought their musical chemistry to the Kaper album and, now with Wars due out at the end of the year, three is truly a charm. Bravo!