Artist: Jan Kopinski

Date of Release: 01/09/1997

Catalogue no: ASC CD 19

Label: ASC

Price: £9.99

Add to Shopping Basket

Track Listing

Jan Kopinski- saxophones,Steve Iliffe - keyboards, Stefan Kopinski - bass, programming, Janina Kopinska - viola
1. Cemetery 8.06
2. House 3.02
3. Spaghetti Traffic 3.55
4. Slow zawsze 4.30
5. Station 3.27
6. Pool of bells 4.51
7. Egg ceremony 8.58
8. Roundfield 7.58
9. Spook 5.32
10. Station East 8.01
11. Marble day dream 3.52
Kopinski's first solo album featuring his most personal work at this time.Most of the compositions are music to film or visual imagery and there is a slow, haunting melancholy throughout the album. Combining a slow-burn rhythm section with family members, Stefan bass and programmes, Janina,viola and Steve Iliffe (Pinski Zoo partner),the moody melodic landscape is inspired by Eastern Europe, film and jazz. Jazz moves from funk to lament.

Reviews

01/06/1998 Ben Watson Hi-Fi News & Record Review

GHOST MUSIC Jan Kopinski

On holiday from his non-pareil avant-funk band Pinski Zoo, saxophonist Jan Kopinski brings in the family: Stefan Kopinski on bass and Nina kopinska on viola. He retains the Zoo's keyboard-wizard Steve Iliffe. Though the sweat and drive of the classic quartet have gone, the programmed rhythms are cunning. Atmospheric and sinister, they avoid the cloddishness cyber-beats are heir to. 'Cemetery' is a haunting opener, Kopinski's sax drifting with gothic grace over the bar-lines. Occasionally the melancholia feels a little too constant: Kopinski's lyricism springs from Ayler and he can take greater challenges as an improvisor. Nevertheless, Ghost Music will convince doubters that Kopinski is one of Britain's few authentic voices on saxophone. Unfussy yet ambivalent, this music speaks a unique, pungent emotionalism.
BEN WATSON

01/05/1998 John Fordham The Guardian

• The Guardian
Jan KopinskiGhost Music (ASC CD 19)****At the original stoke Newington Jazz Café in the late eighties, an eccentric Nottingham free-funk band mixed infectious dance-floor beats with keyboard electronics and a saxophone sound that suggested Albert Ayler more than it did Ronnie Laws. This was Pinski Zoo, led by saxophonist Jan Kopinski, and it deserved mega-stardom because it not only funked your socks off but foresaw future developments in jazz fusion. But its members were diverted by other lives and its good to know that Kopinski and his keyboard partner Steve Iliffe are still creatively active. The music mostly takes Kopinski's ghostly Ayler-like sound at a trance-like walk, and at times it sounds like Headhunters meets free-improvisation. Terrific. JOHN FORDHAM (May 98)

01/04/1998 Chris Parker Jazzwise

Jan Kopinski Ghost Music
Altough two thirds of the nucleus Jan Kopinski's previous band, Pinski Zoo, are involved in this recording - saxophonist Kopinski, plus keyboards player Steve Iliffe - the sound of this album is very different from the heavily anthemic harmolodics-influenced music frequently produced by the Nottingham-based band. The tune titles - "Cemetery", "Pool of Bells", "Marble Day dream" - give some idea of the atmosphere the music conjures up; the intstrumentation - the tenor, alto and soprano saxophones of Kopinski, his daughter Janina's viola, son Stefan's bass and programs - a little more, but the textures resulting from kopinski's saxes slowly unfurling over hypnotic backing, especially when mixed with viola, are intriguingly original and demand to be heard.
CHRIS PARKER

01/03/1998 Barry Witherden The Wire

• The WIRE
Jan Kopinski Ghost music

As a keen Pinski Zoologist, I approached this family affair with some trepidation, regretting the absence of bassist Karl wesley Bingham. Steve Iliffe is brought forward on keybaoards and programs, but Stefan Kopinski contributes bass (and programs) and Janina Kopinska plays viola. Jan Kopinski's talent for writing striking or beautiful or strikingly beautiful tunes was always evident, but in the hurlyburly of Pinski Zoo the finer points could get submerged. Not here. Though this is a predominantly lyrical album, the emotional intensity and instrumental power of his work with PZ is retained. Music with this combination of earnestness, expertise and passion is a rare breed indeed. Snap it up.
BARRY WITHERDEN