Friday 25 August 2017

Zbigniew Seifert's Passion, 1972 to 1979













From wiki:

Zbigniew Seifert (7 June 1946 – 15 February 1979) was a Polish jazz violinist.

Seifert was born in Kraków, Poland in 1946. He played alto saxophone early in his career and was strongly influenced by John Coltrane. He devoted himself to jazz violin when he started performing with the Tomasz Stańko Quintet in 1970 and became one of the leading modern jazz violinists before he died of cancer at the age of 32.

Have a look at the discography, note his involvement on some of the most seminal and ingenious progressive fusion albums including Dauner's Kunstkopfindianer, Kriegel's Lift, Kuhn's Cinemascope (and Springfever), Mariano's Helen 12 Trees, all of which everyone reading this should be familiar with.

When I reviewed his sadly shortened output I realized I didn't have some of the albums after I got turned off by the overlengthy Kilimanjaro from 1979 and the blandness of Man of the Light (1977) which is for some reason the most well-known of his works.  In particular this one, called Passion, also released the year of his passing, which perhaps should be regarded as a requiem for him, threw me off the chair, as I love to say.  Once again teaching us that we must attempt to complete these discographies.

His Singing Dunes, a modern composition that equals anything I've ever heard in the European classical canon of concert halls, should be his eulogy:




Which is followed but not eclipsed by the equally brilliant compositions Quo Vadis and Escape from the sun...
It should be mentioned that all the arrangement and composition is handled by Zbiggy.
Btw Chris Hinze has a production credit.

The track Laverne from the bottom LP approaches the masterpiece level of Passion:





Unfortunately I didn't find too much else of note in that record, nor in the others posted, setting aside of course his involvement as guest artist on Oregon's amazing 1978 Violin.  There are probably a couple I missed here too, like this one which scared me off.

A man who was at the top of his game, suddenly cut off from his genius by an unfortunate diagnosis-- truly tragic.
I'll remember Zbiggy, indeed...



7 comments:

  1. Julian, do you have this:
    Yochk'O Seffer, François Mechali, Thierry Maillard, Patrick Buchmann‎– Mestari

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi James, Mestari is available here
      https://centraldoprog.blogspot.it/

      Delete
    2. Thanks Julian, not the one I am looking for.
      this one from 1993
      https://www.discogs.com/YochkO-Seffer-Fran%C3%A7ois-Mechali-Thierry-Maillard-Patrick-Buchmann-Mestari/release/4761506

      Delete
  2. I would do anything if you would reupload the Zbigniew Seifert albums. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/atkimt
    here you go, all in one

    ReplyDelete