Europe Jazz Media Chart - October 2025

The leading Polish trio RGG, together with the renowned actor Robert Więckiewicz, takes the listener on an improvised journey inspired by the novel "Solaris" by the outstanding Polish writer Stanisław Lem. The material is entirely improvised. This applies to both the music and the text – for each performance, Robert Więckiewicz chooses the excerpts to be presented and their sequence, although the narrative progression of the novel is always preserved. The text is not merely read – it is an outstanding acting performance that utilizes the novel's plotline. The literary story is accompanied by music, which is by no means merely an illustration for the text. Both layers complement, permeate, and harmonize with each other. The mutual synchronization between the actor and the musicians is truly impressive. Więckiewicz proves to be a fantastic improviser, and the trio skillfully responds, comments, and enhances the presented story of the novel.

On his second solo album, Aruán Ortiz draws inspiration from the literary, cultural, and political movement Négritude: angular contemporary music in a political manifesto.

Luigi Grasso is an Italian-born saxophonist – and older brother of guitarist Pasquale Grasso – who has been a member of the NDR Bigband in Hamburg since 2019.  His writing for the big band draws on various influences from jazz and classical music; it is rich and varied and creates excellent contexts for the featured soloists, trumpeter Percy Pursglove, flautist Fiete Felsch, clarinettist Julius Gawlik, trombonist Klaus Heidenreich, guitarist Sandra Hempel, pianist Florian Weber and drummer Jochen Ruckert. The suite “La Dimora Dell'Atrove” consists of two themes and variations that reflect Grasso's personality, one is Heimweh, the German word for homesickness, and Fernweh, meaning wanderlust.

The longlived formation Oddjob with Per ”Ruskträsk” Johansson, Goran Kajfeš, Daniel Karlsson, Lars Skoglund and Viktor Skokic (new member) has now existed in 28 years. All members have long been central to the Swedish jazz scene. On their new record Atlas the group's characteristic, imaginative and creatively playful music-making is recognizable with the ethno-jazz and the prog-jazz in the mix.

As the album title suggests, the French pianist performs solo on a prepared piano, delivering subtle and modern interpretations of John Dowland's compositions. Her piano playing is confident and firmly mastered. This comes as no surprise for a musician who made her name with the Nefertiti Trio (and has been featured on the International Jazz Platform in Łódź). Delicate evocations of Renaissance harmonies and lute songs are enhanced by a new narrative that is sometimes noisy, unstructured or very rhythmic. The atmospheres created by the prepared piano are almost dreamlike. It's a beautiful concept and a magnificent album.

The combination of four wind instruments, a drummer and a singer creates an explosive cocktail. Breakbeats galore, reverb, degenerate jazz and propulsive wind instruments set the tone. The highly personal lyrics (which can be read on the accompanying text sheet and alternate between French and English) are by singer and globetrotter Adrien Sezuba Rukira. They deal with everyday topics and are an indictment of the undermining of established values. These are not literary snippets but genuine “tranches de vie”, raw and confrontational, yet poetic and with a touch of hope. In “So Lost”, they even flirt with sacred choral singing and avant-garde pop! A thoroughly urban project that they themselves describe as “urban brass”. Extremely danceable with an underlying message without pointing fingers. “Let's jazz & hip-hop”.
(Georges Tonla Briquet)

Aruán Ortiz's fourth all-piano album combines intellectual depth with an explosive outpouring of creativity and emotion, and represents a further step in his quest to expand his expressive, creative, and compositional language with the firm imprint of Cuba's musical heritage and the rhythmic pulse of African origin, using the vocabulary of contemporary classical music and free improvisation.

Inscape is the newest album by the Polish ace trumpter Piotr Wojtasik. Recorded in 2024 in Van Gelder Studio, New Jersey, it was released last spring, and followed by a concert tour of the stellar collective with the like-minded musicians who appeared on the record: Mark Shim on tenor sax, Greg Murphy on piano, Alvester Garnett on drums, and the New York-based Dutch bass player Joris Teepe. Piotr Wojtasik’s original compositions represent a stylistic spectrum which he has explored over his four-decade career – post-Coltrane modal jazz, echoes of Miles, and more contemporary solutions. An accomplished virtruoso, he remained for a long time in the shadow of Tomasz Stańko, pursuing his own trail that is rooted in hard bop of Clifford Browna and Lee Morgan, influenced by free jazz of Don Cherry and Booker Little, and updated with newer developments. Piotr Wojtasik has sought to collaborate with top American musician such as Billy Harper, Gary Bartz, Dave Liebman, Victor Lewis, George Cables, Kirk Lightsey, and many others. A musician of honesty and integrity, he plays with fire and raw intensity, and with devotion which brings him closer to today’s spiritual jazz. “Inscape,” the title of this album, can be understood as “seeking the truth inside,” which is reflected in this soul-stirring music – strong melodies, uplifting riffs, inspired solos by all musicians, and irrisistible grooves.