POLISH IS MY ANNA MARIA SOUND by Piotr Iwicki

photo: Kasia Stańczyk

44 SPECIAL EDITION. APRIL/2018 Always her own self in music and on stage, dashing in, pinning on plaits, changing from a dress of one region to that of another, and dart- has forged a strong artistic brand. She has followed her own path ing back out on stage. Passion, hard work, and POLISH for years and remained unaffected by fashions. Her consistent beautiful folk melodies. You soak up this poetics in childhood and then you stay like that, don’t and unflinching creativity has sent her voice resonating around you. I begin writing music, and there’s no way the planet, and she likes to follow that world-wide trail, but to start with a fourth or a fifth, and the scales naturally bend towards Lydian, or Mixolydian, or IS MY as do excellent reviews of her records and performances. Phrygian. And the 6/8 time. No other way. As I write these words, Anna Maria Jopek is gigging with the ethnic I had a crazy childhood, surrounded by true cultural icons. The fabulous actor Tadeusz group Kroke in China and Japan. The latter especially welcomes Łomnicki was our neighbour. When I got in to her time after time, and tickets to her frequent concerts continue music school we had no piano, but he did: an old, SOUND beautiful Arnold Fibiger. He gave it to me, like to sell out well in advance. Excellent planning and inner harmony a good neighbour. The legendary poet and song- writer Agnieszka Osiecka also lived in our street. are no small parts of Anna’s vision-driven career. I had no idea just how wonderful she was because she always lived and breathed other people’s af- JAZZ FORUM: As we speak, you are on the After graduating I enrolled in a Department of fairs, hypersensitive and empathetic. She often far side of Asia and this is, beyond a shadow Philosophy at the University of Warsaw, but by visited because my Daddy and Mummy were two of a doubt, the effect of your consistently hard then I sang with Wojciech and Jacek Niedziela’s unearthly optimists and, no matter what went on, work. You have made a name for yourself. You band and lived by singing. When did it all start? they believed we would pull through. I think peo- are one of the jazz vocalists who are recognized When, as a girl, I heard Wanda Warska sing in the ple liked being near Daddy: he made them feel safe. all around the world. And it all began with a Jerzy Kawalerowicz film “Night Train”. I lay in prize in… Vitebsk, Belarus. bed at night, my parents watched it on TV and the ANNA MARIA JOPEK: It was a personal music carried through the house. I heard Wanda award from at the “Slavianski Warska and didn’t sleep. I thought that this, and Bazaar” festival in 1994. It’s not the only time only this, is what a free person sings like. Her fate intervened like that. I’d get an “upgrade” – an voice was the essence of sensual beauty and infi- I’m difficult to classify opportunity and a front-door entry – while others nitely free phrasing. It freed something inside me, had to start in “Economy” and toil through ten and this thing demanded to be free. Her voice led because I have always been stages. I took these opportunities very conscien- me to Ella and Billie and Shirley and Joni – all tiously. I never felt quite ready, but I acted on those incredible women who knew how to truth- attracted by new impulse, instinctively, with no time to overthink fully tell their stories with music. experiences, it. I learned, I drowned out stress stomach aches, That’s when I was struck by a dream of my own and drove on, come what may. I did my best and space, no matter how modest. I was still studying trying new things had good luck. classical piano when I started to attend – almost JF: You are a versatile, classically trained clandestinely – jazz workshops in Puławy, pianist. When did you come to the crossroads: Chodzież, and New York: that’s how badly I jazz or classical? wanted to sing. Eventually my Daddy took me to AMJ: The piano was never my natural choice. his own singing teacher, the extraordinary Daria Formal music education forced me to dedicate 17 Iwińska. He told me, “I can see there’s no chang- years of my life to it. But singing is what I always ing your mind. You must have technique. Sing- wanted to do the most. I am a third-generation ing is a craft like any other, so learn it from the When I learned to play the guitar, I would singer in my family. One of my great-grandmoth- best.” With Professor Iwińska I sang nothing in plonk the ballads of Bulat Okudzhava. One day ers was an opera singer. My Daddy, a soloist with particular. Over the course of four years I sang Agnieszka visited and brought me Okudzhava’s the Folk Group of Song and Dance “Mazowsze”, perhaps just one piece: Schubert’s Trout. Instead, original manuscripts. She said, “So that’s what always considered singing a precarious career I spent hours analysing how resonating chambers you’re singing… here, I translated it”, and gave and stubbornly supported my pianistic progress. work and where in the head vowels resonate, and me her hand-written lyrics. It’s interesting to think In the final year of secondary school, I practiced learning how to release blocks in the body supine, that I didn’t fully comprehend what I was a part eight hours a day and won the Fryderyk Chopin upright, against the wall: the anatomy of singing. of. That’s just how we lived. Our other neighbours Society’s Artistic Scholarship. And then I got into And, of course, I practised breathing. The result were Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, Witold the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music to study of those four years is that I know, that the human Lutosławski, Lucyna Winnicka, Jerzy Kawalero- piano with Professor Kawalla, in Professor Jan voice knows no bounds. Our only limitations are wicz. And Aunt Alina Janowska. When Mummy Ekier’s department. Professor Ekier protected me in the narrow mind and erroneous beliefs. sent me queuing for sugar or butter at the green- a bit. He felt that some other music tugs at my JF: Music is your family tradition. grocer’s in the empty-shelved eighties, these peo- heartstrings. He was very understanding. Years AMJ: My parents met singing and dancing for ple queued with me. later one of his assistant lecturers told me that he Mazowsze. The first songs my Daddy sang to me JF: And then you felt the blue note? Your first was an astrologer. When new students arrived he were Dwa serduszka and To i hola – folk tunes. steps, performing and recording, including the would look at a wider context of their trajectories I had a hundred adopted aunties, all professional Eurovision gig, were a permanent balancing and their star conjunctions. Apparently, I had spe- singers and dancers. I sat in huge dressing rooms act between styles. I honestly think that this im- cial heavenly protection. backstage and looked at these glamorous aunts possibility to pigeonhole you is your trademark.

SPECIAL EDITION. APRIL/2018 45 AMJ: This is my freedom. It does come at a mension with his music. To listen to him I went – no holding back. And so was my happiness. True price: I lose out where pigeonholes and labels with my husband, co-writer and producer Marcin bliss, like the name of the album. are paramount and where people don’t have the Kydryński – to Molde in Norway, for a jazz fes- JF: How important was this album to you courage to appreciate my music for what it is – tival where Pat was artist-in-residence. We had a from today’s perspective, artistically and pro- my own. I’m difficult to classify because I have better chance of meeting him there since he lived fessionally? always been attracted by new experiences, trying and played there for a week. Getting a meeting AMJ: The album gave me… strength. And vis- new things, and by development – rather than by was aided by the Polish chapter of Warner Music, ibility. Pat had never done anything like that. To “purity” of style. I’d rather be a voice, than a song, with whom Pat then collaborated. We travelled his fans it was a surprise, as was my unknown if it makes sense. Do you know who I am for sure? two days and a night to Molde, across lunar land- self. He has fans all around the world and they all An improviser. And I believe that this, plus my scapes. gave me a chance. I played at the Blue Note Tokyo love for particular harmonies, makes me closer When I finally stood before him, I was aston- only because they loved “Upojenie”. And Ma- to jazz than anything else. But I still really don’t ished by the attention with which he looked at me. koto Ozone came to listen out of curiosity, piqued want to and don’t like to name my music. I’m a I think I won him with my honesty. My motivation by Pat. The Pat Effect… I told him recently, synthesis, and a continually mutating one. was clear: music. I have never been interested in “Did you know that you changed my life?” He JF: Across your career your albums are fame or money. They could be a side-effect of looked at me incredulously. His modesty and hu- milestones. Looking back, it is safe to say that good work, but not its goal. I think Pat knew it mility have always moved me. What a guy. few Polish artists have such a spectacular list of star collaborations as you do. It all started at Polygram, and more precisely, Mercury Records. How important was that? AMJ: When I came to Polygram they had a huge poster of above the door. I thought, “I’ll stay here, I will be closer to him”. As you can see, not very rational. Not at all. But I must admit that I hit the bullseye because Andrzej Puczyński, the Polygram boss and my producer, really be- lieved in me over the years. He would postpone a launch if I wasn’t happy with the mixing, or reshuffle schedules to give me extra time in the studio just so I could achieve the quality I wanted. You can’t overstate just how much I owe him. Thanks to him the album “Barefoot” (2000) was distributed internationally and I started perform- ing abroad. At the London Universal I also had a wonderful boss, Wulf Müller. JF: The next few albums left your stamp on the Polish music industry. I think “Bare- foot” was very important, and your rendition of Wojciech Kilar’s Szepty i łzy (Whispers and Tears), featuring Tomasz Stańko, is one of the highlights of the early 21st century Polish pop. photo: Robert Wolański AMJ: I only borrowed Szepty i łzy for “Bare- foot”. We originally recorded it for Wojciech in an instant. He scanned me with one of those JF: You could say that you took full advan- Kilar’s “The Best”. What a man Mr Kilar was! deep looks and maybe that’s why he listened to tage of that adventure. The albums that fol- Wonderfully relaxed, boyishly joyful, humble and “Barefoot”, when we gave it to him. After all he lowed featured a variety of styles and collabo- with a sense of perspective. For the recording of was given dozens of albums every day: I saw it rations, but still very coherent, with a sound Szepty i łzy Tomasz Stańko didn’t even take off with my own eyes, and in the tense time of waiting signature very clearly yours. And another his hat: he walked in, played the first bar – which I whimpered to Marcin that he’d surely lost mine. dream come true: surely your line-up on “ID” you can hear – and walked out. I doubt that he has a lot of time to listen to so many was any jazz musician’s dream. And you, a JF: Inevitably we are coming to the chap- albums, being as focused on his own projects as woman from Warsaw, are able to record at the ter of your life which we cannot define other he is. best studios with giants of jazz. than as a huge breakthrough, in which you After a few days Warner sent us news that Pat AMJ: And we’re back to Pat. I can’t be sure sail onto the waters of world jazz. The album listened to my album and wanted to know what I if all these incredible people and places would “Upojenie” with cemented your had in mind. Marcin said: “Let’s suggest a joint al- have ever happened without him. Pat endorsed artistic prominence: Pat does not often share bum. If he won’t do that, we can suggest a number me, not with words or a letter of recommenda- a cover. I know that negotiations were lengthy. or two, but there’s no harm asking big.” And he tion, but with what matters most: his music. AMJ: Only because Pat is the busiest person I wrote a really beautiful email, outlining our con- Our music. He sped everything up. Perhaps it have ever met! Getting through to him took long. cept. Over a year passed between that email and would have happened anyway, just much more Details of the collaboration went much quicker. the recording: Pat was continuously on the road. slowly. And he gave me that most important of Pat is one of those people who move you into a We spent five days at the studio, hardly sleeping or things: faith. You know what faith can do? Move different reality, teleport you into a different di- eating. My dedication in the studio was ultimate, mountains! The circumstances of this recording

46 SPECIAL EDITION. APRIL/2018 were quite unusual. Within a single month both and too much of it, is the unique, own truth of an in your music: you can hide the tears. In singing I and Marcin lost our fathers. When I buried my individual. As strong as the DNA. Be yourself, not you can’t hide tears or any other feeling. Every Daddy, I sat in an armchair and did not move for your creation. emotion will vibrate and swing your phrasing. a few days. This album was my survival instinct. I’ve always known it but in the past I didn’t You can hide yourself when you play an in- We had to do it to return to the living. We decided have such a strong sense of my own definition. strument, but not when you sing. Singing requires to meet everyone we loved, find our way to the You’ve got to live and grow to get that. My truth additional courage because really, your voice most wonderful studios and places in the world was the one from the backstage of Mazowsze, is you. Just like the colour of your eyes, the shape and just enjoy life whilst we could. It was quite from studying composers like Karłowicz and Mo- of your skull, the length of your fingers, or like a party! Everyone was there. That’s where I first niuszko, from years of playing at masses in our your thoughts. Your language and your voice played with , , little church in Warsaw’s Żoliborz, and at Jacek are also your instinct, your genetic sound. Attack , Manu Katché, Leszek Możdżer, Kuroń’s canteen for the poor: this is what makes me, surprise me: I will scream in Polish. People and the lovely Oscar Castro Neves, who then took me and not Lullaby of Birdland, no matter how don’t listen to words; they listen to emotions me to Hollywood Bowl. We recorded Christian hard I try. So I thought it was time to put my trust carried by these words – even if they don’t realise McBride at the legendary Power Station in New in my truth and flow from that source. Because it’s it. People listen to what’s inside the word. They York City, former Avatar Studios. mine! And what’s more, it is a wonderful source, hear the intent. Whatever your language, you in Paris. We mixed it at Peter Gabriel’s Real World and still under-explored. It’s where I sprang from will convey the truth. That’s the metaphysics

I sing in Polish because Polish is my sound. Pat Metheny was my watershed because everything that I considered a limitation, he reinterpreted as a value. Pat told me: “Sing only in Polish. It sounds amazing!”

photo: Krzysztof Wierzbiwski Studios in South West England. Mastering in and it’s in my blood, so for me it is real and or- of singing. I sing in Polish also because I know London’s Abbey Road. It took months of labour. ganic. And the best thing about it is that now what I can do with it. Raised on poets like We dedicated the disc to our Fathers. I truly make and break my own rules. That’s the Miłosz, Szymborska, Leśmian, I know the Polish JF: I am getting the impression that after strongest argument. canon of beauty. I know how far I can bend this album you began to deliberately and con- JF: You sing in Polish and that alone separates words, how far I can deform them experimen- sistently create music which we could define you from all those singers who go with the flow tally, and still stay clear of profanity or grotes- as “Polish to the bone”. I believe that’s when of English-language singing as they dream of que. What other language could I do that with? you finally honed your own style. There’s no world careers. But I have the impression that I can take responsibility for my language and pretence; you are an artist who consistently the world doesn’t want those who carry coals when I sing, say, the word “love”, I truly sing showcases all that’s valuable in Polish music. to Newcastle; it prefers the original, the au- about love, in sound and in meaning. The sound AMJ: You may laugh, but it comes out of con- thentic, straight from the roots of heritage. will simultaneously melt away and break. The venience. There comes a moment in life when AMJ: I sing in Polish because Polish is my English word “love” doesn’t hold the same weight you know who you are all too well to dress up in sound. The language affects the timbre, and of sound and meaning. I don’t understand it well strange costumes. Pat was my watershed because that’s very important to me. Besides I believe in enough. everything that I considered a limitation, he re- the ability of singing to communicate non-ver- JF: You showcase the beauty of Polish mu- interpreted as a value. Pat told me: “Sing only bally. The voice is “naked” it its emotional truth. sic, from the traditional to the religious. in Polish. It sounds amazing!” The further from You can’t cry and sing without your throat clos- AMJ: I suspect that all traditional songs are home I travelled, the more I realized that the only ing. You can cry and play the piano and if your steeped in religion, or at least in spirituality. Art- value in a world where everything has been done, fingers are wooden, nobody will hear your tears ists used to be more devoted in the past so old

SPECIAL EDITION. APRIL/2018 47 music weighs more and reverberates more. When and introduced myself: literally that moment he JF: And then you began working with I work with it, its worth is indisputable. Even hangs an old Telefunken over my head. And just Gonzalo Rubalcaba, resulting in the album three simple phrases from Oskar Kolberg have as well because Makoto began playing my ar- “Polanna”. Your Slavic ethereality, and flames such power that you couldn’t make better ones. rangement right off the bat, and I followed im- of Cuban jazz. A perfect storm? Besides, you enter an eternal current. This always mediately. He felt Chopin’s phrasing so divinely AMJ: Gonzalo is a mystic. He can play one moves me. and was so himself and so at one with me, as if note and convey such completeness as would es- JF: “Sobremesa” is your bow to the music we’d been playing an eternity. We came to the end cape others even when they play Rachmaninoff. of Cape Verde and fado flavours. of the sheet, the first reading and… the recording It’s about awareness. Of course his Cuban roots AMJ: For years now, whenever I get cold, I was done. Such ease and delight, nothing to add. also play a role. His talent and his openness come spend time in Lisbon. It’s a musician’s paradise. A miracle. Our first meeting, and our first take. from his genes and home values: his entire family The entire Lusophony lives in Lisbon. I love liv- That went on his album. Then we played our col- are musicians, and the Cuban musical tradition ing there, I love the sun, the delightful people, and laborative “Haiku”, where I adapted the folk tune is terrifically sophisticated. Add to this his pi- the cultural melting pot. I love a world like this, Hej przeleciał ptaszek into pentatonic and the Ka- ano and composition studies with distinguished open ajar. My friends hail from Angola, Brazil, buki flautist played the traditional Polish oberek Russian teachers in Havana, and a high-carat Goa, Cape Verde, and they all live and work in melodies. And it all worked. So many viewpoints, gift for jazz, and it gives you a perfect storm – in Lisbon. I recorded “Sobremesa” with my Lisbon so many ways and beliefs – and always one music. Gonzalo alone. Working with Gonzalo is first and idols, my neighbours. foremost a spiritual experience. Music comes sec- JF: On “Haiku” you partnered up with Ma- ond. You practice your spirituality, like a student koto Ozone. Japan began your second home. of esoterics. You practice trust, because his music I remember how surprised you were when fits no known or predictable method. He is extra- I came to your gig at the Tokyo Blue Note systemic. A miraculous synthesis of knowledge – in my opinion the best club on the planet… and complete freedom. To join him in music, you The best of the best play there, so congratula- have to be perfectly present. Be yourself and at tions! the same time not be: no presumption, no conven- AMJ: It was great seeing you there. Yes, it’s a tion. Singing with him is like walking on water. remarkable place. You could play two gigs a day For Gonzalo, colour is the basic building block; in there because everything and everyone works timbre, framed as aliquots and their products. to make it easy for you. All you have to do is That’s the origin of harmony, in the very process play: that’s happiness. Whenever I return there, of its creation. Gonzalo doesn’t create a reality every detail of my performance is just how I like within the existing harmonic universe like others it. Feedback from stage monitors tells me that all do, but rather he creates his own universe. The instruments are proportioned just as they should, living essence. as they had already proven to work in that space; JF: That was 2011. Now Gonzalo Rubalcaba there is someone who remembers that my voice and you are taking your listeners on a distant coming from the monitors must be without ef- journey again, somewhere near broadly un- fects, must be raw; and someone who remembers derstood tango, pasodoble, milonga… I like conventional stage lighting, and someone AMJ: It was my dream since we worked on who remembers I don’t eat meat. Everyone who “Polanna”. There, arrangements were by Gil has ever played there has a file. Before arrival Goldstein and Krzysztof Herdzin. Gonzalo was all crew members – sound, lighting, hospitality – necessarily a part of a larger team and had to fit study the guest’s file and their requirements. Then within a formally organized space. The theme you arrive, and they are ready for you. of pre-war tangos seemed a perfect pretext for But you know, it would be impressive but use- intimate music-making. This music has poetry, less without the most important and most beauti- photo: Marcin Kydryński sensuality, rhythm: everything that Gonzalo feels ful element: the listening. God, how they listen! so sublimely. Polish, Jewish, Russian and Cuban Such silence, suffused with wholehearted, alert influences melded in a single story, deep and very presence, you won’t find anywhere on Earth. sensual. Close encounters. Interpenetration. After such JF: Your latest album is different; you could performances I carry them in me, my Japanese I spoke about working say: theatrical. Tell us about working with listeners, and I know that they carry me in them with Makoto Ozone Leszek Mądzik, the theatre visionary. Your too. I feel it. What occurs can’t happen by any music is here an actor, and a narrator. other method of earthly communication. Absolute many times. AMJ: Not just the music. I am wholly the nar- unity. Only music can achieve this. rator. My body plays. In the show’s forty min- I spoke about working with Makoto Ozone It’s metaphysical. utes I have to tell, with gesture and with voice (in many times. It’s metaphysical. Illumination and Illumination and ease, vocalise: I sing wordlessly), a life from birth till ease, listening in so closely that we breathe and death. To flesh out Leszek’s ideas I had to face my feel together. When I sang for his album “Road listening in so closely self-consciousness and physical limitations. I was to Chopin”, I brought a sketch of an arrangement that we breathe afraid that I wouldn’t be credible: after all, I am no of the song Nie ma czego trzeba and put it on the actor, or mime, or dancer. Leszek gave me this one music stand. We never played together before. and feel together. direction which put me in the safe zone. He said, Joe Ferla, the legendary sound engineer, chose “Just sing. The body will follow”. In the show my microphone the moment I entered the studio “Czas kobiety” (“A Woman’s Time”) at Lublin’s

48 SPECIAL EDITION. APRIL/2018 photo: Kasia Stańczyk

Teatr Stary, I perform with Robert Kubiszyn, cording session so badly that, two weeks before, and “Barefoot” and elsewhere. He was there in my co-composer and co-performer every evening, I had said at home: “I’m not cooking today. Buy all these landmark moments, co-responsible for and we improvise a lot, following emotions. a kebab and do not enter my room”. I’d sat at the their beauty. I am tempted to repeat Cyraneczka There’s a scene of pain which I have to shout out. piano and wrote three new pieces. Masters like and the obereks and the mazurkas we used to play. Robert always says he’s afraid that I might leave these inspire me to pull out all the stops. When We would interpret and present so very diffe- the stage in an ambulance, with a nervous break- Branford flew to Warsaw, he came straight off the rently today. Neither of us has sat idle in the recent down. Theatre work keeps your emotions wide plane into a rehearsal room at our University of years and I am looking forward to seeing where open. A valuable experience. Music. They nearly spread a red carpet for him, each of us is at the moment. I form no expectations JF: I will spoil no great surprise if I but he just wanted to work on some classical stuff of the evening in Bremen. We will listen to one mention the real thrill you are currently he had to play three days later in Germany. Focus another closely in the rehearsal and everything working on. With Branford Marsalis, Mino and humility. will flow from there. I trust Leszek and I believe Cinélu, and top Polish jazz musicians… JF: When’s the launch? that he trusts me too. We will play our own selves. And again I must remark that, whatever AMJ: Perhaps in the autumn, if I manage to by Piotr Iwicki you play and sing, I hear Polish influences. You tie up all the loose ends. A lot’s happening, and Translated into English by M A Schmidt don’t sail under false colours, you nail them to records – and everything else – should be done the mast every time. consciously. Have time and the heart for it. AMJ: I play and sing the way I know how to. JF: What about the project with Leszek Somebody’s from Portugal, someone else from Możdżer, set to premiere at Bremen’s Jazza- www.annamariajopek.pl Cuba: everyone has their roots somewhere and a head? Will you lift the veil a bit? Management & Booking: way to tell their story. This is mine, I can’t do it AMJ: Leszek and I have met many a time. 4 Music Management any other way. I have no programmatic agenda, His talent, and his personality, and his choices www.4music.com.pl that would be calculating and I wouldn’t like continue to fascinate me. I would recognize his Joanna Drozda that. When I wrote “Upojenie” I fancied being sound at the opposite end of the world, he’s so E: [email protected] Brazilian, but my Slavic roots have still come idiosyncratic. His achievements make me proud, T: +48 602 787 737 through. You can’t escape yourself in this game. as a stablemate of sorts. I am very happy that he Renata Kamola A genius such as Branford bring out the best has agreed to play with my team. He was with us E: [email protected] in me. I wanted to bring fresh ideas to our re- on “Upojenie” with Pat Metheny, and on “Farat” T:+48 784 068 410

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