Grabowski isn’t chasing fashions or staking out territory — he’s making music that trusts its own warmth, and on Jazz Mysteries that’s plenty.
Self-released
Przemysław Jan Grabowski – Piano, Fender Rhodes; Camila Cortina Bello – Piano, Synths; Emir Santa Cruz – Tenor Saxophone; Kali Rodriguez-Peña – Trumpet; Samer Sharawi – Electric Bass; Noam Tanzer – Acoustic Bass; Andy Wilder – Drums
Przemysław Jan Grabowski learned jazz the old way — by ear, alone, on his own terms. Nobody told him what the music was supposed to sound like, and Jazz Mysteries, his debut, has that quality: unguarded, personal, shaped by feeling rather than formula. The Washington D.C.-based Polish-Australian pianist recorded across Havana, London, and Boston, pulling in players from Cuba, the U.K., and the U.S., and the result sounds less like a debut than a conversation that’s been going on for years.
“My Dearest Christine,” written for his wife, sets the temperature for everything that follows — a recurring bass line, a saxophone that enters quietly and stays that way, rim shots nudging rather than driving. The piano settles into repeated phrases, the acoustic bass solo unfolds at its own pace, lyrical and unhurried, the kind of playing that fills a room without demanding attention.
In “Forward Voyage” the bass anchors while the piano builds above it, Grabowski placing single-note runs with the care of someone who knows exactly where he’s going. Tenor saxophonist Emir Santa Cruz circles a melody above the rhythm, and the two of them find an easy groove together, unhurried and assured.
The horns are a quiet pleasure throughout — trumpeter Kali Rodriguez-Peña clean and concise, the tenor warm and fluid, the two of them moving in unison or trading lines with an ease that feels uncontrived. Grabowski stays mostly in the middle register, melodic rather than showy, pulling back on the beat in ways that keep the music from ever feeling rushed. “Serenading the Morning Sun” shifts the texture slightly — synthesizer threading through the melody, a muted trumpet loose and searching above it, the solo passing from trumpet to tenor to piano before “Happy Beluga” arrives and the album finally kicks up: electric bass pumping a groove that bumps rock against hard bop, the Fender Rhodes ringing bright, trumpet climbing into the upper register and blaring its choruses out.
There’s a quiet confidence to it. Grabowski isn’t chasing fashions or staking out territory — he’s making music that trusts its own warmth, and on Jazz Mysteries that’s plenty.
