Glasgow based Saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski joins forces with fellow Scottish compatriot pianist/arranger Euan Stevenson in launching their award winning, genre-bending musical adventure 'New Focus' on Whirlwind Recordings Ltd. Featuring a unique amalgamation of classical string quartet meets jazz quartet plus harp, 'New Focus' showcases a cinematic soundscape of through-composed melodies meeting cutting edge improvisation, drawing upon influences from across the musical spectrum. This hefty nine-piece ensemble excitedly features The Glasgow String Quartet, (comprising some of the finest virtuosos from The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Scotland's leading string quartet), alongside Stevenson on piano leading the first call drum and bass team of Alyn Cosker (drums) and Michael Janisch (bass), Wiszniewski at the helm on saxophones, and Alina Bzhezhinska on harp. Stevenson's tight knit arrangements offer concise, pleasing trajectories, preserving the original sentiment of each composition, enriching them with ever changing soundscapes of strings and harp. Wiszniewski's tone (capable of sounding as sweet as Getz or as plaintive as Coltrane) tells parables of Polish ancestry while the arranger's own crystalline piano laments for pit closures in a northern mining town. A powerhouse rhythm team (Michael Janisch, Alyn Cosker) provides a counterfoil, never allowing the music to become sentimental. This is music at its resourceful best; borrowing the harmonies and sonorities of the classical world, the tone poetry of Scottish Folk, the directness of pop, and all mixed with the bustling edginess of jazz rhythms and improvisation. Duke Ellington famously quipped that there were only two categories of music - good and bad. New Focus most definitely belongs to the former. Following multiple 5-Star accolades for its inaugural performance at the 2011 Edinburgh International Jazz Festival,'New Focus' launches on NOV. 5 2012 worldwide with full tour support. Whirlwind Recordings is pleased to release such a unique and powerful project.
Half a century after Stan Getz and the arranger Eddie Sauter fused saxophone and strings on their cult album Focus, here's proof from Scotland that the quest for the thinking person's fusion still offers no end of possibilities. Wiszniewski and Stevenson - on saxes and piano respectively - have sculpted a clutch of concise, hauntingly original pieces. --Sunday Times, November 11th 2012
