Biography
Marcin Wasilewski, a Polish jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, launched his professional career in his teens by joining the quartet of his mentor, trumpeter and fellow countryman Tomasz Stanko. His crystalline tone and airy, economic delivery enable an exceptional range across post-bop and vanguard traditions. Besides his work with Stanko, he has recorded with Jacob Young, Manu Katche, Amina Alaoui, and others. He also fronts his own trio, which has issued a series of engaging ECM albums including January in 2008, Spark of Life in 2014, and Live in 2018.
Born in 1975 in Slawno, Zachodniopomorskie, Poland, Wasilewski started playing piano at age seven and studied classical music in high school. At thirteen, however, his immersion in jazz fixed the direction of his professional life, prompting him to form the Simple Acoustic Trio roughly a year later with friends Slawomir Kurkicwicz on bass and Michal Miskiewicz on drums. Under that name the trio released several Poland-only albums, among them Habanera in 2000 and Lullaby for Rosemary in 2001, both on Not Two Records. Famed Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko discovered the group and soon made them his rhythm section of choice, resulting in the 2002 recording The Soul of Things and the 2004 release Suspended Night.
The three musicians again recorded independently with 2005’s Trio on Manfred Eicher’s ECM Records. A second ECM album, January, followed in 2008. Faithful appeared in 2011, and Spark of Life arrived in 2014. That same year Wasilewski served as session pianist on Jacob Young’s Forever Young for ECM. He spent the next four years touring with his trio. A performance captured at the Jazz Middelheim Festival in Antwerp, Belgium, during August 2016 was issued by ECM in fall 2018 as Live. He then joined saxophonist Joe Lovano for Arctic Riff in 2020.
Born in 1975 in Slawno, Zachodniopomorskie, Poland, Wasilewski started playing piano at age seven and studied classical music in high school. At thirteen, however, his immersion in jazz fixed the direction of his professional life, prompting him to form the Simple Acoustic Trio roughly a year later with friends Slawomir Kurkicwicz on bass and Michal Miskiewicz on drums. Under that name the trio released several Poland-only albums, among them Habanera in 2000 and Lullaby for Rosemary in 2001, both on Not Two Records. Famed Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko discovered the group and soon made them his rhythm section of choice, resulting in the 2002 recording The Soul of Things and the 2004 release Suspended Night.
The three musicians again recorded independently with 2005’s Trio on Manfred Eicher’s ECM Records. A second ECM album, January, followed in 2008. Faithful appeared in 2011, and Spark of Life arrived in 2014. That same year Wasilewski served as session pianist on Jacob Young’s Forever Young for ECM. He spent the next four years touring with his trio. A performance captured at the Jazz Middelheim Festival in Antwerp, Belgium, during August 2016 was issued by ECM in fall 2018 as Live. He then joined saxophonist Joe Lovano for Arctic Riff in 2020.
Albums
