P.G.R. – ROGALAMUSIC

P.G.R .

(Grzegorz Rogala’s Project)

PGR – in brief Grzegorz Rogala’s Project. It is a leader’s project expressing the idea of a matching of cultures and music genres. This concept includes a dialogue between Polish, Jewish and Latin traditional music, classical music, poetry, biblical themes, and hip-hop free-style. You can find out about it by listening to the 3 CD Albums , which mark the history since the founding of the state farms in 2008. The first of these „Enthuzjazzm” released in 2011 is an exotic mix of klezmer and jazz music, is in a sense a tribute to John Zorn. The next album, „Poezjazz”, released in 2014, is primarily a more personal dimension of music with titles referring to beloved people (Song for Basia), but also poetic lyrics of „Song of Songs” and Bruno Szulc. Both albums were recorded with Israeli saxophonist Sagit Zilberman, who is not only a guest on the discs, but also their co-author. Maciej Sikała, Cezary Konrad and Regis Molina Reynaldo also collaborated with the band – Cuban „brilliant” saxophone (cooperating with, among others, Buena Vista Social Club) ,
PGR has twice received the Berklee College of Music grant, its music was hosted in the UK Jazz Radio, and performed on several important music venues in Poland, Ukraine, Germany, Sweden, France like: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Flugery Lvova, Stockholm Jazz Festival.

Kolejna podróż zespołu przebiega w czasie. Cofamy się w niej o 440 lat. P.G.R. – Polish Psalter, to połączenie muzyki i literatury polskiego renesansu z jazzem. Usłyszymy na niej 7 Psalmów w przekładzie Jana Kochanowskiego, do muzyki Mikołaja Gomółki. Aranżacja jest dziełem lidera zespołu. W składzie usłyszymy: Barbara Rogala – sopran, Anders Grop –Kontrabas, Roman Ott – saksofon, Frank Parker – perkusja, Grzegorz Rogala –puzon. Brzmienie dopełnia użyta w części utworów teorba – Filip Zieliński. Została wydana na płycie CD w 2020 roku przez Ars Sonora.

Zachęceni bardzo dobrym przyjęciem pierwszego albumu, kontynuowaliśmy naszą muzyczną podróż. Kolejny Album: „P.G.R. – Polish Psalter vol. 2” miał cyfrową premierę w Październiku 2023 roku, wydany również przez Ars Sonora. W grudniu 2023 miała miejsce premiera albumu w formie CD.

Obie płyty cieszą się znakomitym przyjęciem fanów i krytyków muzycznych. Dowodem tego są m.in. wyróżnienia „Płyta Kwartału” magazynu „Presto” w 2020 i 2023 roku.

Wszystkie publikacje z serii Polish Psalter, zarówno cyfrowe jak i w formie CD można nabyć wyłącznie w naszym sklepie internetowym: tutaj

The next journey of the band takes place in time. The Poland of the Renaissance is an age of interesting ideas and great projects, one of them is
the Polish Psalter. “At the end of 1579, in the printing house managed by Jan Januszowski in Krakow, the most outstanding work of Jan Kochanowski and all Old Polish literature, „Psałterz Dawidów”, was published. It contained a poetic paraphrase of 150 psalms from the Book of Old Testament Psalms.[…]”
Kochanowski’s translation is therefore not a translation in the sense of a faithful linguistic translation of the original, but a form of modern poetry. Jan Kochanowski suggests musical colaboration for them to Mikołaj Gomółka. This barely after a few months brings 150 psalms in a 4-voice system.
The spirit of polish renaissanse is expressed in this work: National language as carrier of religious essence, rhythms of european dances (Pavane and Galliard), close colaboration of artists from different genres. Usage of natural accents characteristic for polish language.
The same way Grzegorz Rogala – leader of PGR – reworked psalms. Some tunes are played faithfully – each note as in original four voices arrangement, enriched with drums. Than come middlesections which lead to jazz solos with a spice of early-music harmonies, which develope the original idea and lead to common culminations. International personalities which interprete this syncretic concept, makes the music leads audience to the out-of-time areas.