Interview Jazz Forum

Interview with Krzysia Górniak by Marek Romański

JAZZ FORUM: We are talking in an unusual situation – the coronavirus epidemic is raging everywhere, we are forced to stay at home, we live rather in a virtual world, concert halls, cinemas, restaurants, clubs and cafes are closed. How do you deal with it, what does your day look like?

KRZYSIA GÓRNIAK: I get up early in the morning to walk the dog. (laughter) He organizes my life, forces me to go out, to be systematic. Musicians sometimes have a problem with this, you can forget about playing and not leave the house at all, and this is not good for either the body or the soul.

When it comes to the specifics of living in isolation caused by the epidemic, I don’t have a big problem with it. I have been living alone for a long time, in the countryside near Warsaw. Loneliness is not foreign to me, the virus has actually changed little in my life. I can’t go to Warsaw and jam with friends. I miss that. I miss meetings with musicians in general, joint rehearsals – that’s the only problem for now. Fortunately, now you can do a lot of things at home with the equipment I have. I could actually practice for years using the backing tracks I have on my computer. If only they didn’t cut off my power, I would have something to do. You know, a musician, contrary to appearances, spends a lot of time alone – practicing and composing. On my previous album “Moments” there was a song called Meditations, which talks about how a musician spends time with himself and his instrument. Because for me, that’s a kind of meditation.

Now is definitely a good time to turn inward. You can compose, draw or paint in peace – because I do that too. I can finally put my papers in order.

JF: You once said that you like the temporal nature of music, the presentness of its experience, the fact that it is connected with life, with transience. How do you treat your recordings then? What is this music recorded and enclosed on tape or record for you?

KG: What I said then is still relevant. I also said it in the context of other forms of art. However, music is a special medium in this context, and especially jazz performed live. It has a one-off character, it depends on the moment, on the relationship between the performer and the recipient. However, the music that functions on recordings is historical, it is a record of a certain moment in time. With each playback we enter that moment again, that state of emotions. It always carries a certain content – sometimes relaxing, sometimes it can stimulate intellectually, it depends on the listener, everyone can find something different in it. However, certain things are constant in music – for example its danceability, meditation, melodiousness or atonality, they are intended by the creator. There is always some concept in my music. It is a closed whole, a bit like a painting. I work on the melody and harmony so that they fully satisfy my inner hearing. I even feel it physically, I call it the harmonic peace of my body. I try to make music not only tension, but also soothe the senses and provide relaxation.

JF: In music, after tension, there should be liberation, catharsis.

KG: Yes, that’s true. However, there is a lot of music in which there is a lot of tension, without release and there is practically no golden mean. This happens especially often in jazz played by young musicians. A good example of this is hard free jazz. There, the idea is to play a lot, hard and at a given moment to throw out a series of emotional sounds. My music is based on melodies that I have in my head, and then I try to transfer them to the instrument and expose them in compositions. There is a lot of emotion, but the pleasure of listening is based on an intellectual balance between tension and release.

JF: At first, you played only classical guitar, later you switched to electric, which requires a completely different approach to articulation, shaping the sound. How did this process go for you?

KG: For me, classical and electric, jazz guitars are two different instruments. Theoretically, both have necks and look similar, but the learning process is completely different. You can play very complicated pieces on a classical guitar, but not fully know the neck and have no idea how it is built, where the key is, what the scales look like in different positions. It is not necessary to play it. However, in jazz, you have to know the instrument inside out, know all the positions, scales, passages – this is the basis. Only when you know all this can you talk about proficiency in playing and about a state in which you stop thinking about the guitar and focus on what you want to play. There comes a moment of merging with the instrument, when it becomes not a guitar, but a means of expressing the emotions and personality of the creator. It took me over 20 years to achieve this state. I believe that the guitar is one of the most difficult instruments, it requires a huge commitment. When I was learning to play it, we did not yet have the right systems for learning. My studies in Graz, Austria helped me a lot with this.

JF: Did you have any masters that you looked up to, who helped you learn and develop?

KG: Looking back, I can say that the classics influenced me the most, such as Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Bill Frisell. As for Polish guitarists, I listened to Jarek Śmietana and I really only owe something to him. In my youth, I had contact with teachers from the Berklee School of Music and that gave me a lot. I was lucky to benefit from the experience of musicians such as Bob Mintzer, Wayne Brasel, Bill Dobbins, and Karl Ratzer – an Austrian guitarist of gypsy origin who played with Chaka Khan and Chet Baker. My first teacher was I got systems from them, according to which I practiced for many years. I especially developed my technique and understanding of the fretboard, thanks to the American five-position system. Last year I published an online playing school on YouTube. In this way I passed on many of these things and my experiences to others.

JF: How do you shape your sound? What are your guiding principles when using guitar effects?

KG: I had different periods when it comes to this. When I recorded the album “Ultra” in 2004, I was fascinated by different effects. I used distortions, choruses, long and short delays, octaves. I had a very extensive “floor” then. Later, however, I moved away from it. Since I have a Gibson ES-175D, i.e. from the album “Emotions” (2009), I don’t feel the need to use effects as much. The noble sound of this instrument means that I simply try not to drown it out. Currently, I use only reverb and delay. On the album, the guitar is only plugged into the line and a good quality preamp. It just sounds like that, it’s just my hands. On my latest album you can also hear two other guitars – in the song Travel I play the Godin ACS Slim, it’s my new instrument – ​​electric, but with nylon strings. It has a bright and a bit sharper sound. In the backing tracks you can hear the Gibson Acoustic L-130 acoustic guitar, I also play the AER Compact 60 amplifier.

JF: Judging by the titles of your albums “Tales”, “Emotions”, “Feelings”, “Moments”, “Memories” you care about conveying the truth about yourself, about moments torn from life, emotions, impressions that accompanied you.

KG: It’s true, today I can look from a broader perspective and I see that it was a certain path. Apart from a certain deviation, which was the fusion “Ultra”, the rest fits into a whole – stories, emotions, feelings, moments, memories… I always look for the truth in myself about what I am going through at a given moment and all compositions were written under the influence of current emotions and feelings. Now, when I listen to my old songs, I can recall those moments.
What I wrote on my last two albums is much more mature, other topics are already appearing – the meaning of life, transience, the fact that people who were important to us now live only in our memories. In a strange way, it corresponds with the atmosphere we have due to the coronavirus pandemic, although I didn’t have that in mind when I wrote the songs. Grzegorz Grzyb passed away while I was working on this album, so I wrote one of the compositions for him. My close friend also passed away and his memory is also on the album. It is significant that “Memories” is the last album partially recorded and mixed by Winicjusz Chróst, who passed away five days before the premiere after a long illness. For me, it is the closing of a certain stage, because I worked with him on the production of my 7 albums.

JF: Before we talk about the new album, let’s go back for a moment to your debut “Tales” (2002). I remember that in the promotional materials there appeared an enthusiastic opinion of Pat Metheny about this album – how did this album end up in his hands?

KG: At the time, some doubted that Pat had said anything like that at all. But it is true. During the Warsaw Summer Jazz Days 2000, my friends from Graz and I played the material from the album “Tales” on the side stage, Pat was the star of the festival. Backstage, he got our demo album, which we later released as “Tales”. We wanted him to simply say what he thought about it, whether the material was suitable for something. And Pat wrote his opinion in an email. For me, it was very motivating. You know, in those days, a girl playing the guitar was a kind of phenomenon, sometimes difficult for some to accept. Today, it is completely different – girls play many instruments, form bands and no one is surprised by it. Back then, it was quite difficult for me in our environment. Especially since in Austria I had no problem with it – I was accepted to study and treated the same as the boys. After coming to Poland, I was confronted with our reality – I was treated quite specially. And Pat’s opinion gave me the courage and strength to do what I love. JF: In the text promoting your new album, you describe your playing as a “combination of virtuosity with subtle femininity” – do women play an instrument differently? Does music created by women differ in any way from “male” music? KG: In this case, it was more about the association with certain emotions. “Subtle femininity” could just as well refer to the playing of, for example, Pat Metheny. I mean a certain lyricism, songfulness. However, if you ask about the differences between music created by women and men – you can find them, although not all of them. I have played with women many times and I think that some of them have a different approach to time than men. For them, time is a bit like water – it does not mean that they are not in time. It is something different. There are also women who play like men – there are no rigid rules here.

JF: Leszek Możdżer claims that men tend to get ahead of the rhythm, while women let themselves be carried away by the rhythm.

KG: Yes, he put it perfectly. Time is like water for women, the combination of a male and female approach to rhythm can give a new quality in music. Women also have less tendency to compete in music, they are more inclined to socialize, to be together. On the other hand, the current young generation of musicians is generally less confrontational, they prefer cooperation to competition – which makes me very happy.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a famous middle-aged musician, who explained to me why musicians often do not choose female instrumentalists for their bands. It is not about whether they play better or worse – but as a rule they attract attention, take away the attention of the leader. There is simply still such a great disproportion between male and female instrumentalists that the latter can automatically count on the interest of the audience. Perhaps this will change someday, but sexuality will always be in us. I don’t disown my gender, but it’s not a subject for me to ponder too much – it just is and that’s it.

This disproportion between women and men in instrumental jazz results from many things. It’s often the case that girls, seeing how much time they have to devote to learning to play, simply give up. Women also have more family-related responsibilities, which clash with the life of a musician. On the other hand, it’s also harder for women to give up their family life.

JF: Four years after the very electric, club-oriented, electronic-saturated album “Ultra”, you actually released a pop album “Garden Of Love” with vocalist Szymon Pejski.

KG: “Ultra” wasn’t entirely mine – the co-author of all the songs was the drummer Piotr Remiszewski. Incidentally, he’s now the mayor of Milanówek! (laughter) On “Garden Of Love” (2008), I was a guitarist in a project that I co-created with vocalist Szymon Pejski. He wrote all the compositions, I played, arranged and produced the whole thing, but it is not my own album. A somewhat similar situation is also in the case of “Tribute To Nat King Cole” (2015) – here we developed the whole thing together with vocalist Maciej Miecznikowski.

JF: The recording also involved, among others, the Atom String Quartet…

KG: There is an interesting story connected to this album. Maciej Miecznikowski heard me in the library in Magdalenka at my mother’s poetry evening. He came to me later and proposed cooperation on his own project. He wanted to do something different than his band Leszcze and other, quite commercial productions that he was involved in. He had an idea to arrange Nat King Cole’s songs – he came to me with his guitar, started singing and all that was left was to arrange it for two guitars, so that they sounded beautiful. One guitar is more folk, acoustic, mainly played in the backing, and the other – mine, a jazz one. It was interesting work, I liked what we were doing. We worked on this material in the summer, for about two or three months. We rehearsed almost every day and prepared the album. It sounds quite original, because in Cole’s compositions there was always a piano – with us everything is based on two guitars, double bass and drums. We played a concert with the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra in Sopot conducted by Wojciech Rajski, the orchestra arrangements were written by Artur Jurek and only then did it sound the way it should sound. So we decided to add a string quartet to our arrangements and the Atom String Quartet was the perfect choice.

JF: You graduated in philosophy from the University of Warsaw. Does this knowledge help you in any way in creating, in being an artist?

KG: I recommend philosophy to everyone, because it is knowledge that helps in everything. It broadens horizons, gives understanding of the meaning and purpose of life. Thanks to it, you also understand language much better. I read a lot, I cannot imagine life without books. It is possible that an artist can be confined to one field, but I am not one of them. I am a humanist, I have broad horizons and I look in different directions. Besides, philosophy is not a closed chapter for me. I have published my reflections: “John Cage and contemporary aesthetic thought” and “The recipient of new music”. I have also written about the meaning of improvisation, I am thinking about a doctorate in music aesthetics. This is still an important part of my life.

JF: Your latest album “Memories” is a form of reflection on life, the human condition. Her motto is: “The fragility of fate is a part of life and the more we realize the inevitability of transience, the more we appreciate the time we have left.”

KG: The maturity of an artist’s sound does not depend on the instrument or the effects they have applied to it, but on what they have to convey to others. This in turn is inextricably linked to what they have experienced, who they have been, where they have traveled, what they have read, etc. I hear that in the music. In a sense, “Memories” was created throughout my entire life. Music is the sum of my experiences. However, the compositions on the album were created over the last two years, and most of them last year.

JF: Did you write for this specific line-up or did you select musicians for already written pieces?

KG: I write melodies and harmonies – these are usually jazz compositions that can be played by different line-ups. I wrote the songs from “Memories” for a jazz quartet, I assumed it would be guitar, piano, double bass and drums. In my previous line-up from the album “Moments” Grzesio Grzyb played, with whom I had already arranged to work on the new album. Unfortunately, after a few days I found out that he had died. Then I wrote Touch of Your Soul with a dedication to him – it was August. When Grzesio was gone, I had to change the entire line-up – it resulted from the harmony of the individual musicians. Marcin Jahr sounds great with Michał Jaros. Michał Wróblewski appeared in the meantime, I played with him at jams and I liked the way he leads the phrase, he is very creative, similarly to Piotr Wrombel, who also played on “Memories”. Similarly, as on many of my previous albums, the whole sound is complemented by electronically generated pads and strings. This is something that creates a beautiful, floral carpet in the background.

JF: Since each of the songs on the new album is connected to a story, a memory, let’s talk about them in detail…

KG: Strawberry Kisses – June 2019, strawberry time, which is associated with the time of kisses. From a technical perspective – one of the things that distinguishes the music on this album is polyrhythm, in this case it is in five. This song sounds sensual, that’s how it was supposed to be. The impulse here is not a specific event, but memories, nostalgia caused by something that happened and had no continuation. Sweet Almonds is even more sensual, in addition to playing the guitar you can also hear my vocals, which I repeat the first theme. Sea Salt on My Lips – at first I had a fourth motif in my head, and then I started to wonder what it could fit. This folk, slightly highland motif reminds me of gusts of wind on a boat. It is played in three, so it sounds even more homely, this impression is further enhanced by the bow strokes on the double bass strings. We talked about Touch of Your Soul – this is where my emotions after Grzegorz Grzyb’s death come to the fore. I was at the seaside when I found out about the tragedy. I came back the next day, I couldn’t sit there. Later, there was a funeral in Stargard Szczeciński. They rented an amphitheater there for a special concert dedicated to Grzesiek’s memory. I played a duet with Łukasz Makowski. While we were playing, the cathedral bells rang in the exact key (D minor) in which we were playing my prayer from the previous album – Meditation, I had shivers down my spine. My Indian Summer – a composition written in September, it was about 30 degrees then, an atmosphere of incredible laziness, you could almost feel it in the air. You can relate it to a sea voyage, space, there is relaxation and looseness in it – this is what I wanted to convey in this piece. I dedicated it to my friend, who is also no longer with us…

JF: In this piece, your playing reminds me a bit of Metheny…

KG: I am glad to be compared to one of my masters. It is not that I plan such things, or even think about them. It happens by itself. I always follow what I hear inside. Travel is a memory of my trip to Italy in 2018. There is both landing at the airport and water spaces, lying on the beach, a melody that was playing in my head during all this. Travel is very important to me and inspires me a lot. I am a sailor, I have a sea sailor’s license and several hundred hours sailed on different yachts. During the trip across the Atlantic, I experienced an extraordinary feeling of unity with the planet, I felt as if the planet was breathing. I was sailing on a big, long wave and this lift caused this feeling in me – it was something exceptional, almost mystical. Cardamon Coffee is my tribute to the band with whom I recorded the album. I really like these guys, we work well together, each of them is an excellent, versatile musician, but also a positive, warm person. So I recalled the memories of the coffees we had together, which started our rehearsals… (laughter)

JF: Do you plan the music on the album as a larger whole?

KG: Yes, I always think about how to choose the sounds so that everything creates a coherent whole. I also plan what the order of the songs should be – I love listening to albums in their entirety and that’s how I create my albums. Of course, individual compositions separated from each other also sound somehow, but together they create a new quality. I also try to make the cover complement and complement the music.

Thank you for the interview.