Album Notes

Nora, apart from being a fine female name, is also the title of an equally fine theme by the Zbigniew Seifert Quartet. The piece helped the band win the Jazz nad Odrą festival in 1969. Last but not least, Nora serves as the title of the Quartet’s very first album to be released this spring – a mere 40 years after the band's breakup!

„Nora” documents the work of a superb jazz ensemble whose members were said to have gone beyond quartet playing. From 1962 onwards they developed their musical abilities and constantly evolved as performers and composers. They debuted in 1965 at the 14th Cracow All Souls’ Day Jazz Festival and in time became one of Cracow’s most prominent groups. Jazz standards as well as the group’s own compositions became a part of their repertoire.

The Quartet performed at two editions of the Jazz nad Odrą festival, winning both group and individual awards. They also appeared at the Jazz Jamboree – Poland’s flagship jazz festival. The group disbanded in the autumn of 1970 when Zbigniew Seifert and Janusz Stefański’s gig commitments with Tomasz Stańko’s quintet made it impossible for them to engage in the two projects simultaneously. Excerpts from the Quartet’s 1969 performance at the Jazz Jamboree were released on a compilation LP „New Faces in Polish Jazz”. The record turned out to be the group’s first (and also last) release – the Quartet never made any studio recordings and no album of theirs was ever released in the famous „Polish Jazz” series.

„Nora” features a number of live recordings from the band’s festival appearances at Jazz nad Odrą (1969) and Jazz Jamboree (1969-70). Standards like „East of the Sun” and „Blue in Green” come back to back with intriguing compositions such as „Meandry” (Meanders) and „Ten niezastąpiony” (The Indispensable One). The players rank among the cream of the crop in the world of Polish jazz. Janusz Stefanski (dr) has appeared in numerous projects both in Poland and abroad. The pianist Jan Jarczyk has come to prominence with several marvelous compositions written for Studio Jazzowe Polskiego Radia (a jazz band led by Jan “Ptaszyn” Wróblewski). Among the many collaborations of Jan Gonciarczyk (b) are his spells in the Henryk Slaboszowski Quartet as well as the group Anawa. And finally the band’s leader, Zbigniew Seifert, still considered one of the most prominent violinists in the history of Polish jazz, whose manner of playing the fiddle resembled the way Coltrane handled his saxophone. Yet Seifert was also a great saxophonist himself, and the new CD “Nora” fully corroborates this statement.

All the tracks have been carefully remastered. The CD comes with a lavish booklet featuring a lengthy essay on the Quartet as well as some rare photographs of the band.