Marek Blizinski
Encyclopedia
Marek Bliziński - Polish jazz guitarist and composer. Played with Michał Urbaniak, Wojciech Karolak
and Zbigniew Namysłowski.
Marek Bliziński was the first Polish world-class jazz guitarist. Stylistically, he belonged to the jazz mainstream, continuing the tradition of electric jazz guitar started by Charlie Christian
and represented later by musicians such as Kenny Burrell
, Barney Kessel
, Wes Montgomery
, Jim Hall
, Joe Pass
, Pat Metheny
and John Scofield
.
In 1971 he was already collaborating with Krzysztof Sadowski and Wanda Warska. He founded the quartet “Generacja” (Generation), which won a prize in the “Jazz nad Odrą” festival; Bliziński himself won the 3rd prize in the instrumental category. In the years that followed, he played with Zbigniew Namysłowski, Michał Urbaniak, Tomasz Stańko
, Jan Jarczyk, Włodzimierz Nahorny, Adam Makowicz
, Novi, Bemibek, the Polish Radio's Jazz Studio conducted by Jan “Ptaszyn” Wróblewski, the Polish Radio and Television orchestra conducted by A. Trzaskowski, Wojciech Karolak
and Janusz Muniak.
Bliziński's technique was dazzling. He worked very hard, practising constantly, aiming at maximal precision. He started his own trio in the late 70s, with which he played in jazz clubs and recorded his first album, “The Wave” (Poljazz). When the Jazz Forum magazine held a contest in 1982, Bliziński attracted the highest number of votes in the jazz guitar category. In the following years, Marek Bliziński and Jarosław Śmietana became the two most popular jazz guitar players in Poland.
Bliziński was recruited by Zbigniew Namysłowski in 1983. He played with “Air Condition” on jazz festivals in Europe and Canada. Johnny Olson
wrote in the Swedish paper Nya Wermlands-Tidningen
on April 26, 1983:
Despite many successful records with many musicians, Marek Bliziński had little luck with his solo records. Disappointed with imperfect recordings, he used all his savings for instruments and his own recording studio. He started working with his fellow musicians for the Royal Viking lines. Between cruises, he worked on his next solo album.
He was a universal guitarist and a good bass guitar player. His playing was characterized by perfect technique, moderation and good taste. As a soloist, he represented gentle virtuosity, free from cheap tricks, preferring full sound and a natural use of the instrument. Kazimierz Czyż wrote:
He was an appraised theoretician. Taciturn and not particularly communicative in person, he was vastly knowledgeable. He published the book “Jazz Guitar” in 1983, written in surprisingly comprehensible language. This compendium of knowledge about guitar playing was complemented by his teaching experience, gained during jazz workshops in Chodzież and Mąchocice.
He occasionally collaborated with the “Jazz Forum” and “Jazz” magazines, writing reviews of records and books related to jazz guitar.
, the doctor on board ordered his immediate return home.
In a Warsaw hospital he was diagnosed with dangerous metastases of an advanced cancer. He died three months later in a hospital in Potocka street in Warsaw, six days before his 42nd birthday.
Wojciech Karolak
Wojciech Karolak is a notable Hammond B-3 organ player who refers to himself as "an American jazz and rhythm and blues musician, born by mistake in Middle Europe". He has also played saxophone and piano professionally.In 1958, he started working with the band the 'Jazz Believers' playing alto...
and Zbigniew Namysłowski.
Marek Bliziński was the first Polish world-class jazz guitarist. Stylistically, he belonged to the jazz mainstream, continuing the tradition of electric jazz guitar started by Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
and represented later by musicians such as Kenny Burrell
Kenny Burrell
Kenneth Earl "Kenny" Burrell is an American jazz guitarist. His playing is grounded in bebop and blues; he has performed and recorded with a wide range of jazz musicians.-Biography:...
, Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...
, Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...
, Jim Hall
Jim Hall (musician)
James Stanley Hall is an American jazz guitarist.-Biography:Educated at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Hall moved to Los Angeles where he began to attract national, and then international, attention in the late 1950s...
, Joe Pass
Joe Pass
Joe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century...
, Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...
and John Scofield
John Scofield
John Scofield , often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham,...
.
Music career
Bliziński grew up in a family with strong cultural traditions. He got hit first guitar on Christmas 1962 and taught himself how to play. He founded the band “Czterech” (The Four) in 1966, with which he played the music of J.S. Bach transcribed for three guitars and drums. The band won the “Igrce Gliwickie” competition in 1967; Bliziński won the first prize in the instrumental category. He wrote in one of his letters:
I learned a lot while working with this band. I developed my technique and started to pay more respect to time: tempo and precision in rhythm; most of all however, I learned inner discipline ― indispensable in self-development.
In 1971 he was already collaborating with Krzysztof Sadowski and Wanda Warska. He founded the quartet “Generacja” (Generation), which won a prize in the “Jazz nad Odrą” festival; Bliziński himself won the 3rd prize in the instrumental category. In the years that followed, he played with Zbigniew Namysłowski, Michał Urbaniak, Tomasz Stańko
Tomasz Stanko
Tomasz Stańko is a Polish trumpeter, composer and improviser. Often recording for ECM, Stańko is strongly associated with free jazz and the avant-garde....
, Jan Jarczyk, Włodzimierz Nahorny, Adam Makowicz
Adam Makowicz
Adam Makowicz born Adam Matyszkowicz is a Polish-Canadian pianist and composer living in Toronto. He performs jazz and classical piano pieces, as well as his own compositions...
, Novi, Bemibek, the Polish Radio's Jazz Studio conducted by Jan “Ptaszyn” Wróblewski, the Polish Radio and Television orchestra conducted by A. Trzaskowski, Wojciech Karolak
Wojciech Karolak
Wojciech Karolak is a notable Hammond B-3 organ player who refers to himself as "an American jazz and rhythm and blues musician, born by mistake in Middle Europe". He has also played saxophone and piano professionally.In 1958, he started working with the band the 'Jazz Believers' playing alto...
and Janusz Muniak.
Bliziński's technique was dazzling. He worked very hard, practising constantly, aiming at maximal precision. He started his own trio in the late 70s, with which he played in jazz clubs and recorded his first album, “The Wave” (Poljazz). When the Jazz Forum magazine held a contest in 1982, Bliziński attracted the highest number of votes in the jazz guitar category. In the following years, Marek Bliziński and Jarosław Śmietana became the two most popular jazz guitar players in Poland.
Bliziński was recruited by Zbigniew Namysłowski in 1983. He played with “Air Condition” on jazz festivals in Europe and Canada. Johnny Olson
Johnny Olson
John Leonard "Johnny" Olson was an American radio personality and television announcer. His work spanned 32 game shows produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman from the late 1950s through the mid 1980s...
wrote in the Swedish paper Nya Wermlands-Tidningen
Nya Wermlands-Tidningen
Nya Wermlands-Tidningen , shortened NWT, is a Swedish local newspaper distributed in the provinces of Värmland, Dalsland and western Dalarna....
on April 26, 1983:
Shocking. I was knocked out by his strikingly good guitar playing. He stands still as a statue, with no expression on his face but with what seems to be a direct connection between his brain and guitar. His playing reveals sound knowledge of guitar improvisation history. On four bars distance he went up to his knees in blues mud, somewhere in the Mississippi delta, rendered guitar canons of the 1950s and finally sailed across some funk patterns of the kind that make you feel dizzy. Technical problems seem to be totally unknown to him. He swings strongly when he wants to. Whatever he does, he does it with a temporal precision sharp as a razor. A noteworthy man: one of the best I've ever heard, and I've heard quite a few in my life.
Despite many successful records with many musicians, Marek Bliziński had little luck with his solo records. Disappointed with imperfect recordings, he used all his savings for instruments and his own recording studio. He started working with his fellow musicians for the Royal Viking lines. Between cruises, he worked on his next solo album.
He was a universal guitarist and a good bass guitar player. His playing was characterized by perfect technique, moderation and good taste. As a soloist, he represented gentle virtuosity, free from cheap tricks, preferring full sound and a natural use of the instrument. Kazimierz Czyż wrote:
His playing is characterised by a synthesis of focus and a unique selection of sounds. He never performs with the aim of showing off, in a manner where fingers are faster than thought; instead, he is always focused and seems to play for himself, without attempting to boast. It's probably this introvert approach to performing that makes him almost unnoticeable; there is only his music on the stage.
He was an appraised theoretician. Taciturn and not particularly communicative in person, he was vastly knowledgeable. He published the book “Jazz Guitar” in 1983, written in surprisingly comprehensible language. This compendium of knowledge about guitar playing was complemented by his teaching experience, gained during jazz workshops in Chodzież and Mąchocice.
He occasionally collaborated with the “Jazz Forum” and “Jazz” magazines, writing reviews of records and books related to jazz guitar.
Illness
Hardly anybody knew about Bliziński's illness. He underwent an operation for skin cancer in 1985, which seemed to be a success. He was strongly advised to avoid the sun. He went on another cruise in 1988. Many months spent on sea had a negative effect on him. He started losing moral support, fell into depression and became weaker and weaker. Two weeks before the end of a cruise near JamaicaJamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, the doctor on board ordered his immediate return home.
In a Warsaw hospital he was diagnosed with dangerous metastases of an advanced cancer. He died three months later in a hospital in Potocka street in Warsaw, six days before his 42nd birthday.
- Original text from note “About author”, written by Janusz Popławski, from the book “Gitara Jazzowa” (“Jazz Guitar”). Publication approved by the author.
Selected discography
- Bemowe Frazy (1974, Bemibem)
- Question Mark (1978, Janusz Muniak Quartet)
- Flyin' Lady (1978, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski)
- The Wave (1979, trio)
- Z Lotu Ptaka (1980)
- Dla ciebie jestem sobą (1987, Poljazz PSJ 140, duo with Ewa Bem)
- Constellation (1988, Ryszard Szeremeta)
External links
- Archiwum Polskiego Rocka: Marek Bliziński (in Polish)
- Album Dla ciebie jestem sobą (recording)