ZK Collaboration is a band that was born out of destiny and friendship. It just had to happen. Everything took root in 2016 however started much earlier. The fate and course of events slowly but consistently guided the lives of the leaders of the ZK Collaboration Maciej and Adam in such a way that, thanks to the artistic experience gained over the last decade, outside Poland, return and join forces.
Thanks to this, the multitude of inspirations taken by the leaders makes the team extremely interesting, even unique. ZK Collaboration is a group of friends. Some of them sat together at school desks, studied, traveled, and made music together, drawing from youthful energy and the extraordinary interaction they had developed over the years.
He has brought an element of the avant-garde to our ‘punk-rock’. As an outstanding improviser, he is sometimes allowed to play by himself on our album. He combines great versatility on both the piano and keyboards with constant experimentation in the form of piano preparations, exploring new types of sound on the keyboards, and the use of pads. The harmonies audible ‘underneath’ the music bestow on this album a kind of elegance and an element of unpredictability.
Though musically hyperactive, playing all the time and on everything that comes his way, ‘Mizer’ is the good spirit of our band, and one can’t help loving him. He acts as our bridge between jazz and rock, since he is an excellent jazz guitarist who is also very good at powerful rock phrases. In this jazz-rock style he is simply outstanding. He has it in his blood and his sound.
His main instrument being the double bass, which he plays in an extremely melodic manner, on ‘Slow Food’ Roman gives a first-class performance on the bass guitar. He has perfectly adjusted to the formula of electric jazz. The sound of his bass, prepared with dozens of effects, is a strategic aspect of the album. With Adam they have known each other since childhood. It is a rhythm section that has ‘played’ together from their sixth year of age.
‘Zagór’ is a fantastic drummer gifted with an extraordinary melodic-harmonic intuition thanks to his absolute pitch. This lets him know exactly what the soloist needs him to play at any given moment. His drumming style, combining a rock beat with a note of free-jazz nonchalance, is truly spectacular, edgy but subtle at the same time. He is a highly sensitive person and artist, which can be heard in his pieces. Music has been part of his life since early childhood, because his parents were world-famous opera singers. He’s a very talented guy who sometimes seems to be quite unaware of it.
Maciej has always been something of a rock guy. One the one hand, he started as a freejazz enthusiast; on the other, he has invariably been fond of the folk traditions of his region. He later managed to fuse folk, US jazz, and Scandinavian music. He is now a highly versatile and conscious musician, but also a very natural and unpretentious one. He does not follow ready-made formulas and feels music in his own way. I have been able to observe and admire his musical evolution for the last ten years.
For decades, the creative music market has been determining and setting the framework for jazz musicians and improvisers of modern times that try to work with. Despite the great advances in technology, artists still limit themselves to very fast work on their own material. We – in short, satirically call it “Fast-Food”, made massively, often without a soul and deeper thoughts. Slow Food, on the other hand, has a completely different quality. Each blade of rosemary, bay leaf or a pinch of cardamom is carefully thought out to create the final and at the same time unique, unique work.
In our case, the work is not a dish, but music, in which every note is thought out and selected in the best possible way. We work slowly, and it takes time to prepare a Slow Food. We work on songs for days, sometimes weeks, to be sure of every form, technique or effect that we will use in our musical work. It gives us great faith in our music. Thanks to this, we sincerely convey to the audience our artistic soul, as well as how we perceive the world.
The musicians carefully prepared and refined the material before recording it. The programme emerged by trial-and-error through analysing and correcting imperfect arrangements, gradual and patient experimentation. It was in this process that the recipe for “Slow Food” was worked out.
On entering the studio, not only the leaders but all the band members were already aware of what precisely they had come there to record. Though the music was composed by Zagórski and Kądziela, they claim that the ensemble’s contributions are too substantial to attribute the pieces exclusively to them two. “We came to rehearsals with ideas, drafts, and themes. But it was in the process of all the bandsmen’s joint work, both in the preparation phase and that of organic post-production, that our compositions took their final shape.”
Fundacja Polski Jazz Records, 2018
Union, clash, weave, partnership, meeting, cooperation, collaboration – many words were used to describe their duo by Adam Zagórski (drums) and Maciej Kądziela (alto saxophone). Double Universe indicates opposing personalities of leaders, the confrontation of which provides a unique sound. “It’s a split personality, the dark side and the light side”
Warner Music Poland, 2021
