Zone K

This album has been put together from three concerts in February and March of 2003, while sax player Jan Kopinski and keyboardist Wojtek Konikiewicz were touring England with drummer Steve Harris. Three of the six pieces are credited to all three musicians, which would indicate their improvised nature, and indeed they sound like jams, but more striking is the presence in them of Konikiewicz's electronic keyboard, which tugs the music away from the realm of jazz. And yet, Harris' self-effaced swing and Kopinski's hard bop soloing keep things rooted in the idiom. Konikiewicz himself is a man of contradictions, improvising chord changes on the piano while triggering electronic sweeps in "Trinity Meet." "Corner Jam" is a more straightforward improv, the keyboardist sticking to an electric piano setting that evokes the worst moments in the history of jazz-rock (luckily the music doesn't get that bad). "Night to Dream" is the only composition contributed by the sax player. An expressionist ballad, it gets a bit too soggy; Kopinski doesn't have the roundness in sound and soul to make the piece rise above its clichés, On the other hand, his sharp tone works very well in Konikiewicz's "Troika," a tricky modern fusion workout, and in the funky "Pool Fool," oddly left hollow between the keyboardist's piano stabs and synth blurbs. ~ François Couture, Rovi