JAZZ REVIEW, June 2003

Zone K, Kopinski& Konikiewicz

K and K go back two decades. They re-cemented their musical partnership with a tour during the saxophonist’s sabbatical from his venerable band, Pinski Zoo. This album draws on three of those gigs. The brooding, riveting “Pool Fool” is the earliest performance, in Nottingham on the last day of February. I’m not familiar with the Bonington Theatre, but the acoustics on this cut suggest an intimate space, with Kopinski supplying some extended perspectives by the occasional use of added echo and other electronic effects. A gig in Gainsborough six days later is represented by “Impresja XV” and “Trinity Meet”, the former a gorgeous, startlingly pastoral solo for grand piano, the second a passionate but controlled trio composition opening out from some eloquent drumming. Kopinski is in spellbindingly authoritative form here. The remaining tracks were cut in Newcastle the following day.

Even on the crowded harmolodic agenda of Pinski Zoo, Kopinski finds room for same ballad business, but the keenest PZ fans (amongst which I’d number myself) sometimes wish he’d allow himself a little more elbow-room, the chance to spread that magnificent thick tone and epic vibrato more generously over broader expanses, to develop his ideas in a more linear fashion than he does within the intense but closed systems of the regular band. He was last heard on disc in 1998 with Ghost Music, where his lyrical side was given full rein. Zone K paces the territory between that and Pinski Zoo.

The PZ ethos derives largely from the world of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, though Kopinski’s own sound is closer to Albert Ayler. With this trio he navigates the other principal stream of the New Thing, sometimes using a light tenor tone sounding unusually like Coltrane. (He even quotes “Cousin Mary” on “Corner Jam”.) “Troika” carries us close to PZ territory, but the other pieces let us hear how adept Harris is with a less structured but no less dynamic pulse. Konikiewicz creates consistently engaging and fluent music on the piano, whilst his electronics stand in for the great Karl Wesley Bingham… or, perhaps, more like Stefan Kopinski who, in the current double-bassed edition of Pinski Zoo sets solidly funky diatonic figures against KWB’s pantonal harmolodic fantasies.
Impresja? It most certainly did.

Barry Witherden