Anicca by Andreas Polyzogopoulos

Τrumpet player, composer and improviser Andreas Polyzogopoulos comes up with Anicca, his third personal album. Joined by a fresh group -a quintet this time- and replacing the double bass with the electric, Andreas introduces us to his new music. This music has been performed widely in concerts throughout Greece, and this has actually helped it mature over time.
Centre-point and main source of inspiration for his work is Anicca, or a sense of impermanence, according to an ancient Indian dialect. Andreas had the chance to experience this almost transcendental state on the occasion of a meditation seminar in the spring of 2014. Consigned to absolute silence for ten whole days, he was acquainted with a distinct “sense of the self”, bringing to the fore unexplored inner facets. “That’s the underlying spirit of the album, I should think,” he says.
“Andreas Polyzogopoulos constitutes one of the rarest cases of musicians who seem to possess a kind of maturity that only nature can endow with. It is not so much his noticeable musical studies than his aesthetic choices and eclecticism which have guided him towards shaping his distinctive music style. It is also his deep questioning and never-ending quests across all genres of the contemporary musical output. And most importantly, it is all about the essence of music rather than the trappings of virtuosity,” as composer and Utopias’ producer Vangelis Katsoulis mentions, a man who worked closely with Polyzogopoulos throughout the recording sessions of this album. “Andreas has played in two of my own albums, and we’ve done quite a few things together so far. Our friendship is getting stronger over the years. It was therefore evident that he would turn to Utopia Music for the release of his new album. Our joining forces, is not by coincidence, since we share the same points of reference. The fact that Andreas was a disciple of Markus Stockhausen and Paolo Fresu, who have also participated in some of my albums, has rendered this connection even deeper.
Anicca is also an interplay of Andreas’ rich experience accumulated over the course of endless performances, and the mutual interaction of musicians who seek to trace the “ultimate sound”. As far back as 2006, Andreas was to establish his quartet alongside his studies at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Two years later, he recorded his very first album under the title Perfumed Dreams, mainly based on his own compositions. Apart form the outstanding reviews it received, the album won first place at Motives for jazz competition in Belgium. What followed was an extended tour throughout Greece, Belgium and the Netherlands. During that time Andreas began to experiment with effects, and, drawing on Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Paolo Fresu and Nils Petter Molvær, he has managed to articulate his own unique style.
2012 saw the release of Heart of the Sun, yet one more album dedicated to the music of Pink Floyd, Andreas’ favorite rock group. What he attempted to do in that album was to stay closer to the music rather than transform the melodies and harmonies of the original material. The album was hailed both by the Greek and international press, and the quartet toured in NYC, Amsterdam, Paris, Munich, Dresden, Berlin, as well as, all over Greece.
The new elements Anicca brings with it is the timbre of Antonis Maratos’ electric bass, (well known from the legendary group Mode Plagal), the characteristic performance of Greek-Swedish guitarist Andreas Hourdrakis (well known from his co-operation with E.S.T.’s Magnus Öström) and the interplay of Andreas’ old fellow musicians, Costis Christodoulou on the keyboards and Alexandros- Drakos Ktistakis on the drums.
Out of the eight innovative compositions in the album there emerges an intensely Mediterranean flair, intermingled with rock harmonies - an implicit reminder of Andreas’ references to the Pink Floyd. At the same time, what comes to the fore is a new kind of jazz with the power to enchant and utter a deeply idiosyncratic discourse, either in the flow of an inner thought (Anicca) or in the insouciance and sheer joy of it (Volcano in the Sea, Pont Luis Blanc, Vigla, Apagio), or, even in the melancholy emanated from Barbas, Not Even, Se Nostalgo.

Greek trumpet player and composer Andreas Polyzogopoulos continues his jazz odyssey with the release of 'Petrichor', his fifth personal album. The European Jazz Scene is where Andreas feels at home, especially where the music has enough space to take risks and experiment with the timbres of the trumpet, the rhythm, electronics and the silence.

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