* En anglais uniquement
Maciej Obara is a Polish alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and improviser, whose powerful sound is characterized by an idiosyncratic and discernible phrasing. He leads his own quartet and has played on recordings by everyone from Sleepwalker and Krystyna Stańko to
the Fonda-Stevens Group (Trio +2) and the Silberman New Quintet.
Obara developed his own musical language from the very beginning. Despite collaborations with artists from Japan, the United States, and Europe, his main focus remains his original quartet with
Dominik Wania on piano, Ole Morten Vågan on double bass, and Gard Nilssen on drums. The members of this band represent a narrow group of European jazz musicians who consciously and uncompromisingly avoid musical literality in favor of a clearly distinguishable sound.
Obara studied at the Polish Music Academy, where he created his first trio with Maciej Garbowski on bass and Krzysztof Gradziuk on drums. They won a competition for young bands and recorded two albums, Message from Ohayo and I Can Do It. Both attracted positive reviews from the Polish jazz community.
In 2008,
Obara received an invitation from world-renowned trumpeter
Tomasz Stańko to join his New Balladyna Quartet (and later
the Tomasz Stańko Quintet), and recorded "Terminal 7" on
Dark Eyes. While in
Stańko's ensemble,
Obara met pianist
Wania, who became his constant musical companion. Initially,
Obara's artistic interests leaned toward contemporary jazz from the East Coast of the U.S. He invited saxophonist
Antoine Roney for a Polish engagement, then traveled to New York in order to record the new material with musicians centered around the artistic and pedagogical community of SIM (School for Improvised Music). As a result, two more recordings were released with the support of the cultural institution Ars Cameralis Silesiae Superioris: Three with
John Lindberg on bass and Harvey Sorgen on drums, and Four with
Ralph Alessi on trumpet,
Mark Helias on bass, and Nasheet Waits on drums.
Obara's next step was the enlargement of his original trio lineup, inviting
Wania and creating the quartet that recorded his fifth album, Equilibrium, opening a new stage of the saxophonist's musical development based on a more tonal approach and more complex compositions. In 2012
Obara was selected to join the group of ten musicians from Europe who took part in the project Take Five: Europe, a professional development scheme produced by Serious (the organization that produces the London Jazz Festival) in the U.K. Take Five: Europe brought together some of the most talented emerging jazz musicians from France, Holland, Norway, Poland, and the U.K.
Participation in this project was a turning point in
Obara's career. It led not only to performances at the London Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Molde International Jazz Festival, Jazztopad, and many others, but also to his collaboration with Norwegian artists including bassist Vågan and drummer Nilssen. After Take Five: Europe, he established his first permanent international quartet, which included the aforementioned musicians and
Wania.
This quartet turned into
Obara's primary unit. As
the Maciej Obara Quartet, they recorded Equilibrium in 2011 and toured the globe to support it, performing at Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Jazz Standard in New York, Porgy & Bess in Vienna, and the Cotton Club in Tokyo, as well as at festivals including the Tokyo Jazz Festival, Jarasum International Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz, Ottawa Jazz Festival, Molde Jazz Festival, Festiwal Jazztopad, Izmir Jazz Festival, and the New Haven Jazz Festival.
The band recorded three albums for the Polish record label ForTune as
Obara International during this fruitful period: Live at Manggha and Komeda (2013) and
Live in Minsk Mazowiecki (2015). At the end of 2016
Obara was invited by ECM's Manfred Eicher to record an album for the label, and the saxophonist and his ensemble entered Oslo's Rainbow Studio in January 2017. Unloved was issued in November of 2017 under the
Maciej Obara Quartet name, and all but one composition was by
Obara save for the title track, which was composed by
Krzysztof Komeda. ~ Thom Jurek