James Brandon Lewis among the highlights at Jazztopad 2021

The 2020 Jazztopad festival suffered from bad timing, virtually wiped out as a victim of that year’s November lockdowns in Poland (and just about everywhere else). This year the Wrocław 10-dayer was fated to survive intact, even if audiences were subject to number-limitations. Early on, Kit Downes played the National Forum of Music’s huge organ, and there was a small invasion by artists signed to the We Jazz label from Helsinki, as Koma Saxo, Y-Otis and Lucia Cadotsch all played strong sets. The Canadians-in-NYC Cat Toren (piano) and Michael Bates (bass) delivered a sensitised set in the NFM Red Hall, as well as making a significant mark during the nightly jam sessions, and the final weekend’s house gigs.

James Brandon Lewis secured a dominant position during this climactic run. On the Saturday he played a Red Hall duo set with pianist Alexis Marcelo, then premiered a new work for tenor saxophone and string quartet. On the Sunday afternoon, JBL joined a pair of Concerts In Living Rooms, in domestic settings around town, then late in the evening, he and Marcelo dove deep into the basement jam session at the Mleczarnia café.

At the NFM, JBL’s urgent vibrato communicated dramatic/romantic intentions, tough and rapid. Marcelo was a revelation, not so well-known in Europe and not much more in NYC, where he’s mostly known for playing with percussionist Adam Rudolph. Unusually for an extreme improviser, Marcelo's style is infused with gospel, angled towards an atonal ragtime tumble. He’s extreme, but arriving from an unusual quarter. JBL tore out raw edges for the tearing cries of ‘Broken Shadows’, and Marcelo contributed a few tunes, followed by Yusef Lateef’s ‘Estuary’. This was hot jazz, academically frenetic, melodically aroused, but with an untethered freeness.

The Lutosławski Quartet immersed themselves with an intense resolve, giving the weeping lament of ‘These Are Soulful Days’ a strangely Chinese anthemic lilt. JBL adopted a smoother tenor sound for this commission’s premiere, rounded and warm, but getting bluesy when he soloed, as the beseeching strings swung. One of the quartet had an annoying tendency to provide a firm boot-tread rhythm, perhaps out of necessity to the music, perhaps out of habit. This time should have been felt, not heard. In the second half of the piece, JBL became wilder, with a manic reeling in his horn, a hard rhythmic lurch, as the strings made skating strafes. The tenorman honked liberally, as the end section sounded like ‘Wade In The Water’, suffused with gospel joy and suffering.

The Sundogs trio provide the heart of the nightly jam sessions and were also present at most of the house concerts. There were six of these over the last weekend, and Sunday’s second was also livestreamed, JBL and Marcelo joining the Sundogs for an outlet of pure free jazz tension. JBL is surely the most monstrously energised saxophonist around nowadays, his unamplified in-the-room sound amongst the most powerful possible. Without an amplifier, even Zbigniew Kozera’s bass could be heard sometimes, as Mateusz Rybicki darted sleek and light on clarinet, with Samuel Hall’s drumming invention always on-the-run. JBL loves to load up hard-cycle repeats, growling tough, with huge lung-stamina as he riffs roughhouse. His dominant lines provided a core structure. The free-blues gathered all in its wake…

Down at the Mleczarnia jam session, the free improvising continued deep into the night. This is not a session for standards. It’s a rare jam that involves spontaneous improvisation. Nevertheless, when JBL and Marcelo joined a horn-loaded combo for some fearsome razor-funk interplay, there were admittedly riffs and lines in sight, even if they were of complex criss-crossing breed. Marcelo found a clipped clavinet sound, JBL got ready to roar, Kuba Kurek joined on trumpet, Olaf Węgier on tenor (both members of the great EABS band), with Porto-based baritonist Julius Gabriel adding the final explosive weight. A dancehall reggae incursion was made to climax, as siren-blast horns linked bells, thinking as a single octopus, and for the next piece, within seconds, they switched to a Moroccan gnaoua vibration, suddenly reduced to a trio, Gabriel moving from reed-horn back to baritone, Kozera swapping from bass to gimbri.