The Lizard Magazyn Poland our CD release The Wroclaw Sessions.

Lizard Magazyn (2019)

Mark Lotz Trio
The Wroclaw Sessions
Audio Cave 2019

They say not to judge the books on the cover. And what about music CDs? Tough collectors know that a good cover is often a decisive factor influencing the high rank of the album in the collection. What’s more, the album covers go to the gallery, an example of which can be the annual 30/30 Competition, under which the works decorating the envelopes of Polish plates are rewarded. The Wroclaw Sessions album of the jazz trio of Marek Lotz (with Grzegorz Piasecki on the double bass and Wojciech Buliński on the drums) certainly deserves special attention not only due to the music, but also to the graphic concept.

A mechanical fish, with a metal pipe and flip flaps instead of the belly, is a symbolic combination of music and technology with nature. I associate it with the fantastic films by Georges Méliès, such as Journey to the moon (in which the underwater world blinks for a moment) and Journey to the land of impossibility. Especially the second film could be used on the basis of Mark Lotz’s music as a soundtrack, because the vehicle to which the participants of the expedition return from the Sun is just like a mechanical fish (the train broke). Such a cosmic submarine, thanks to which travelers are in the ocean of cosmic spaces.

The fish motif appears on the covers of various designs by Mark Lotz quite often, but this time the work of Ola Zbrzeska is of special beauty. And what about music? Registered during a one-day session with Polish musicians, the songs combine traditional jazz pulse (capital rhythm section), flutist improvisations and discreetly accented references to world music. It’s very intimate, thrifty music – only flute, double bass and drums. Lightly matt, dirty sound gives the music a lot of old-fashioned elegance. One that would correspond well with the films of Méliès, to which he once put the electronic duo Air. If someone prefers acoustic music, he can successfully incorporate The Wroclaw Sessions.

Mark Lotz Trio is the result of the meeting of the outstanding Dutch flutist with Polish jazz musicians. Their joint playing is fresh, thrilling, full of air and space. Sometimes it gets thicker (eg in the promo album Roaste Men), but usually classic simplicity prevails. The most beautiful piece is short Lullaby For Tymon, in which there was no drummer – apparently during the session he got horribly ill, which is why some songs do not contain a line of percussion. Which part of the fish do you prefer – the one with metal flaps instead of the belly or the one without flaps? Both are very nice.