“7 pieces for improvising piano and strings” – is one of Leszek Możdżer’s first attempts at composing. Heintended to create a program with a gentle sound (after many years of participating in jazz scene avant-garde projects and hundreds of concerts and recordings set in the pretty aggressive jazz mainstream style, this need seems pretty natural).

Piano accompanied by a string orchestra is a perfect set for an artist seeking an intimate, warm sound. Mild and sweet strings are like a canvas on which the artist draws his brilliant improvisations with a thin line, although they are put in the front in theme expositions. The program, classical in its form, still has a strong improvisational spirit, which happens between musicians “here and now”; there area lot of surprising open themes, whoselength depends solely on the pianist’s solos. Every track can last for 5 minutes, however, there are also those who last 25 minutes.

The orchestra isn’t just automatically creating the background for the improvising Możdżer; lead by a skilful and careful conductor, it is leading a dialogue with the piano through the change of tone, dynamics and articulation; it is a machine inspiring the pianist. All the musicians have fun while playing because it’s hard to predict sometimes which way the interpretation will go, even more as Możdżer likes to experiment.

The project as a whole has a mild, pure convention, the pieces aren’t over-elaborated, there is a lot of melody and soft harmonic turns
and everything is spiced up with a pinch of swinging jazz pulsation. A moment to catch a breath in a fast-pace world.