EXTRA BALL

1. "Narodziny" (10:05) beautiful, lush keys, bass, and cymbal play open this almost like a NOVA Vimana song. Soprano sax joins in to lead us down the country garden path. At the two-minute mark the band reshapes the Deodato-like electric piano lushness into something that sounds more like Klaus Doldinger's PASSPORT. I am in love with the mutually-respectful spaciousness of each individual musician's play: it's as if everyone is so in-tune with the others that they are all playing this game of turn-taking. While I am impressed and enjoying each and every band member's skill and prowess on their respective instruments (as well as the engineering choices to put the bass and electric piano far forward and the drums, sax, and electric guitar [mostly] back) I find myself really attracted to the Elio D'Anna-like melodic choices (and sounds) of Andrzej Olejniczak on his soprano sax (which is very odd as I'm usually quite nauseated by the sound and play of saxophones). (19/20)

2. "Taniec Maryny" (3:30) two bouncy electric piano chords open this one, repeated until guitar, bass, and drums join in after about ten seconds. The production is very warm and inviting while the style is jazzy over a "Smooth Jazz" rock 'n' roll two chord vamp with regular deviations into a bar or two of "chorus" chords. The melodies are often shared, presented by the guitar, sax, and Władysław Sedecki right hand. It's simple and mathematical--like an étude--and yet offered with admirable precision and clarity. (8.875/10)

3. "Bez Powrotu" (2:40) this one is much more aligned with traditional jazz stylings: walking bass, nuanced syncopated drum play, whole-group presentations of melodies in harmonic weaves with electric piano chords bridging the middle ground. (8.75/10)

4. "Podróż w Góry" (3:50) very quiet and delicate electric guitar with rich electric piano support opens this one for the first minute before the guitar, sax, and synthesizer jump out front with a very high-speed motif which gattling gun bass and frenzied drums try to keep up with. The overall sound is quite modern--like the music to an early video game or pinball machine. Impressively disciplined synchrony from the lead instruments with the poor capture of the drum sound making it sound as if Benedykt is having trouble keeping up. (8.875/10)

5. "Siódemka" (6:55) more impressive machine gun whole-group spitting and spraying of harmonically-composed melodies over another rhythm track that sounds and feels very much like the uptempo hard bop jazz of late 1960s. The musicians are each quite impressive with their skill and dexterity, and the melodies are quite clear and, I'm sure, impressive from a jazz and classical music perspective, but this is exactly the kind of pre-fusion jazz that I find myself unable to follow, understand, much less enjoy. The Bob James-like electric piano and jazz guitar solos in the third and fourth minutes, respectively are my favorite part of the song after the impenetrable music of the first two minutes. Then, at 4:31, a fast-tempo Mahavishnu-like motif ensues that is much more funky, spaced and broken up, with short burst solos that are much more accessible and digestible to my puny little brain. This part I love, so I'll not let the first two-and-half minutes spoil what turns out to be quite a great song. (13.625/15)

6. "Szczęśliwy Nieszczęśliwiec" (4:05) built over a very comforting rhythm and harmonically-rich jazz-rock base with more humanely-paced bass, drums, and melodically-sensible this one My favorite song on the album because it is both beautiful but also cuz it allows my the time and space to get inside (and feel comforted by) the music. My favorite song on the album. (9.25/10)

7. "Blues For Everybody" (5:45) piano and jazz guitar open this one with some truly blues-based music as the two dance around and within each other's melodies and chords. The one-minute intro is awesome and then the two lock into a more uptempo and more structured blues motif so that they can each solo off of one another. The two musicians sound very mature, relaxed, and confident--as if they're really enjoying playing off one another. A master class in two-person blues-based jazz very much akin to the stuff Scott Joplin and Django and Stéphane Grappelli did together. (9/10)

8. "Hengalo, Almelo, Deventer" (3:20) what a weird sound the engineer-production team have given to the drums! And they've pretty much isolated the bass from everybody else in the mix as well. As a matter of fact, all of the instruments sound and feel boxed/cordoned off from one another--as if they were each in their own little sound room while the recording was going on. Weird! Makes me wonder if this was a preview of modern music in which the musicians do not even play along side one another, recording their "parts" for their own separate tracks, in the studio while the rest of the band is not even present--all from charts! The musicianship is impressive, as usual, but the overall effect of such separation in the final mix makes me feel as if this is just a presentation of someone's composition as rendered by hired studio musicians--compiled over, perhaps, weeks or months! Me no like! (8.75/10)

A lot of this album feels like a lot of jazz to me: harmonically and confusing, overwhelming, and coming from extremely-highly skilled musicians whose brains live and work in an universe that is totally foreign to me. Obviously, bandleader-guitarist Jarosław Śmietana and his keyboard counterpart Władysław Sedecki have a very special relationship--one that is founded much more in the esoteric domains inhabited by the great jazz musicians--but their impressive play does not always translate into enjoyable music for me.

Total time: 40:10

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of diverse, highly-skilled, but-more jazz-oriented jazz-rock fusion. Because of its borderline rating score and slightly "out of the box" (rather eccentric) relationship to the more stereotypic sound and styles of progressive rock music, I'm going to only give this four stars; it is not a masterpiece of what I would call progressive rock music but more of a minor masterpiece of electrified jazz and jazz-rock.

The album starts where Marlboro Country ends - with a new (quite close to original) version of Krakowski Festiwal Jazzowy, the track which was also closing the previous album. Go Ahead contains some lyrical parts like Gwiazdka dla Ewy, Kocham Cię Anno, some dynamic like the title track, Taniec na Linie or Airport, there's even a cover of John Coltrane's Naima.

Overall, this album is not as disciplined as its predecessor. There aren't as many regular, memorable melodies but ther's more space for improvisations. It's more free and that's what makes it interesting.

Good, instrumental jazz. 3.5 stars.

Marlboro Country represents Extra Ball heading for mainstream jazz territory. The album sounds... nice and optimistically, there are many regular, memorable melodies (the most memorable could be Wesoła Pieśń dla Keesa with great flute solo). There are also some more lyrical parts like Nocne Impresje or Pieśń dla Elvina Jonesa (which turns into free jazz for a while). Overall, accessibility would be the most attractive attribute of this album, particularly for those who don't expect a copy of Birthday (Extra Ball's debut album).

Nice, good instrumental jazz album. 3.5 stars.

Birthday was released in 1976 in the Polish Jazz series as Vol. 48. It contains instrumental jazz rock, which can be compared to Return to Forever or Weather Report . There are also some polish folk inclusions in tracks Narodziny / Birthday and Taniec Maryny / Maryna's Dance and blues (Blues For Everybody). Music is rather dynamic, which proves virtuosity of the musicians (the only lyrical track is Szczęśliwy Nieszczęśliwiec / The Lucky Unlucky Man). Album lasts about 40 minutes but you wouldn't notice when it finishes.

Very good jazz rock, highly recommended particularly for the fans of Weather Report and Return To Forever. 4 stars.