Grażyna Auguścik & The Andrzej Jagodziński Trio

Joe’s Pub 425 Lafayette Street (bet’n E. 4th & Astor Place), New York, NY 10003 Subway: 6 to Astor Place; N, R to 8th Street/NYU
Tickets: $15, 212-967-7555 or online To secure a dinner reservation, call 212-539-8778. Please note that purchase of a ticket does NOT guarantee seating.

Capping their East Coast U.S. tour, renowned Chicago-based jazz singer, Grazyna Auguscik and Poland’s acclaimed Andrzej Jagodzinski Trio will give a concert of Chopin-inspired jazz at Joe’s Pub. In Chopin Goes Jazz, Auguscik vocally complements interpretations by Jagodzinski, a pioneer of the “Chopin stream” in Polish jazz, with her flare for scat and by tapping, as did Chopin, into Polish folk music.

Polish-born Frédéric Chopin, who moved from Warsaw to Paris at age 20, is revered around the world as one of the greatest composers. But as a composer, his own reverence for Bach and Mozart did not prevent him from respectfully transforming traditional musical structures; and as a pianist he was startlingly innovative and a master of improvisation. It is therefore not surprising that he has inspired a new stream in Polish jazz.

Her convergent technique could well foretell the future of jazz singing.
Christopher Loudon, Jazz Times, on Auguscik Jagodzinski manages to avoid the "switched-on Bach" approach, listening out for those aspects of Chopin's celebrated pianism which are most jazz-like […] Very beautiful and unaffected music.
– Richard Cook & Brian Morton, the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 1996