MICHAL URBANIAK - CONSTELLATION IN CONCERT (Power Bros 00119) CD 42mPolish CD's are nigh-on impossible to find here in the UK. I know that CD's by the likes of SBB, Niemen, Skaldowie, et al, are available over there, yet finding out exactly what and how to get it is not easy. So, hats off to Power Bros., a Polish jazz label, for resurrecting this classic, from when Michal Urbaniak was at his creative peak.Live at the Warsaw Philharmonic in May 1973, it's interesting to compare this to the likes of Soft Machine, Isotope and others from the same era, who all offered similarly innovative fusion, bridging the avant-garde with jazz, rock and folk musics. Though, really, the Constellation were an altogether more esoteric band, with a freewheeling manner of intuitive improvisation: Wojciech Karolak's ambiguous noodlings on his Farfisa piano and gurgly swirling Hammond organ, sometimes interactive Ratledge-like systemics entwined with Adam Makowicz's Fender piano. Mostly though Adam plays bass, in tight unison with Czeslaw Bartkowsi, possibly Poland's best known jazz drummer. The strange touches are supplied by Michal's wife Urszula Dudziak, her odd electronic percussives and uniquely creative vocal/tape/echo extravaganza's add that something extra. Urszula's bizarre vocal work-outs grace many an Urbaniak studio album, and what she does here in a live situation is no less remarkable. Unusual for Michal however, here he doesn't touch his most played instrument the saxophone, but just sticks to violin! In doing so, he goes to show just how unique and creative a style he had, a long way from the Ponty/Lockwood school, much more aggressive and challenging in structure. Really, he plays violin as though he were using a sax, which makes for some very unusual phrases and solos, especially as he plays an electric violin. "Cool Groove" is what I've heard early Urbaniak being called, and so true, cool and hypnotic it is too, not least the 17½ minute Bengal, the surprising ethnic through to chaotic Lato and most atypical Seresta which chugs along with interactive violin/vocal duets by Michal and Urszula.review by Alan Freeman in Audion magazine 33 (1995).