Jan Kopinski's 'Mirrors' @ The Sage...
Anybody remember Pinski Zoo, that British harmolodic funk unit which
enjoyed moderate to fair success in the '80s and '90s? Although the '80s revival
is pretty much everywhere at present, the re-entry of tenor saxophonist Jan
Kopinski into my world was prompted by something altogether different. Performing
a suite-like piece called 'Mirrors' at The Sage's Hall 2 last Saturday, the
event formed part of a wider series of Polish jazz, and indeed performing art,
marketed as POLSKA YEAR!
Of course Pinski Zoo are still around and occasionally reform, but opportunities
to hear this slightly maverick original are all too scarce. The last time I
saw him in fact was with what was then a new post-Zoo band known as 'Ghost
Music', and that was so long ago that I can't even hazard a guess as to when
it was. This particular series of three gigs opened with that well-known Pole
Nigel Kennedy, and concludes on Wednesday with a return visit by Marcin Wasilewski's
brilliant trio. I missed Kennedy and his acclaimed Polish group and will also
sadly miss Wasilewski due to another comittment, but I was more than happy
to renew acquaintances with this talented post-Coltrane man. A multi-media
event, the gig also revealed several impressive and undersung dimensions to
his art. Relying heavily on structured composition and tonal arrangement, this
was certainly no free-funk burnout.
Performing beneath a large rear-projection screen, the images and music were
complimentary without being over-powering. Kopinski's Reflektor project also
sets music to moving images, but this project was something far more personal.
Film footage sourced from several of the saxophonist's trips to Poland (dating
back to the '70s) was carefully spliced and looped by Jim Boxall. Making an
evocative backdrop for the loosely suite-like piece which Kopinski had titled
as 'Mirrors', the work succeeded in its intended aim of portraying an intended
evocative almost dream-like inner journey. It was hard not to feel the oppression
of the communist era, and very noticeable how covert the footage of those years
looked. Religious iconography seemed to be placed in opposition and suggested
some brighter form of hope, but the over-riding impressions I took away from
Kopinski's voyage were those of displacement and loss.
Joined by long-time collaborator (and Pinski Zoo member) Steve Iliffe on piano,
his allotted role was pretty much that of accompanist. Setting the tone and
building tension with repetitive vamps and slightly jarring Tyner-ish ostinatos,
from the very outset the group's music more akin to control and discipline
of the ECM school than the riotous Prime Time inspired antics of Pinski Zoo.
Texture and timbre were all important here, and Kopinski's deployment of
voice (Aniko Toth) and viola (Janina Kopinska) gave a suitably chamber-ish
aspect to large sections of the work. Son Stefan played electric bass, and
the hyper-kinetic Patrick Illingworth's drumming brought us closest to the
dense laminal of Pinski Zoo. Sombre meditations on painful tragedies, a joyous
(and Ornette-like) excursion into its folk music, menacing evocations of
its political and religious turmoils (set to a backdrop of powerful iconography)
and several apparently random but somehow symbolic vignettes all made for
an engaging programme.
The music of 'Mirrors' placed Kopinski closer to the mainstream of contemporary
European jazz than I've heard him at any time before. Highly impressionistic
and with strong narrative and pastoral streaks, the biggest measure of tis
success was the ease with which it imparted at times complex emotional content.
Closing with a long claustrophobic piece which he called 'Corn Field', the
disappointingly small crowd didn't clamour for an encore. The package deserves
far wider exposure than I fear it will receive, and top marks to The Sage for
picking it up...
(Fred Grand)
Africpepperbird - Link to original article