Aya Al Azab is a musicologist and journalist of Polish-Jordanian roots specializing in blues and jazz music. She a judge of the 7 Virtual Jazz Club’s Contest since 2022.
Can you tell us more about your professional background? What’s your main field of work today?
I am a musicologist and editor. I am associated with both academic and music environment.
I am currently preparing a dissertation on blues music in Poland with the focus on the history of African-American blues on the basis of black studies, because I am interested in talking about blues or jazz music in an African-American context. Unfortunately, over the years Western, European and American culture has created a Eurocentric narrative about popular music. Although this has been changing, it is still dominant in the older generation – even unconsciously. I hope to defend this PhD in a year or two. I am active academically in the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, black studies, popular music, post-colonialism, publishing scholarly articles, giving lectures on the history of African-American music, primarily in the context of blues and jazz music.
I also work as a music journalist, I host radio programmes (blues-jazz) on Polish Radio Lublin (previously on Radiojazz.fm) and I publish in music magazines (JazzPRESS, Twój Blues, Pismo Folkowe). I have been working with JazzPRESS since 2012. Apart from reviews and articles, I have done dozens of interviews with inspiring musicians, because meetings and conversations about music with others are important to me.
I am a member of the just-formed first popular music studies research group in Poland. I am trying to use my education in my work as a journalist, and perhaps also in popularising music.
Aya Al Azab
How do you see the state of jazz in your country? In which direction is it going?
Jazz in Poland has a long history, as it has been developing since the inter-war period. During the communist era, when the Polish nation was under occupation, young people found freedom in jazz music. They were thirsty for music, especially Western music, which was associated with freedom. In the past, musicians did not have access to equipment, jazz education, they learned by ear, experimenting with building sound systems and instruments. Not infrequently spending all their money on it. Can you imagine that today? This love and commitment to music? Besides, Polish music has a long avant-garde tradition, with many outstanding composers going down in history. Therefore, improvisation and searching for new solutions has always been natural for Polish jazz musicians. This is still the case today. We are currently observing several trends in the work of young musicians.
On the one hand, the freedom to combine various genres, electronics, free music, contemporary music (for example, Marek Pospieszalski’s recent albums No Other End of the World Will There Be and Polish Composers of the 20th Century), chamber music, hip hop and funky, as well as combining jazz with large ensembles and experimenting with orchestration (Leszek Kułakowski and, more recently, the young composer Piotr Scholz). On the other hand, musicians are not ashamed of tradition, swing or combining jazz with poetry, but in an open sense, including spoken word (Bartłomiej “Eskaubei” Skubisz and Piotr Lemańczyk), piano playing is also very important in our culture, so I also observe different approaches to the jazz piano (Sławek Jaskułke – an imaginative artistic evolution, today he focuses on timbre, he is its master; Włodzimierz Nahorny – a veteran of Polish jazz, not ashamed of beautiful melodies, a new generation such as Kasia Pietrzko, Grzegorz Tarwid, Franciszek Raczkowski).
We also have outstanding trumpeters and in terms of mastery of the instrument and personality, originality of approach to music (Tomasz Dąbrowski, Emil Miszk and Wojciech Jachna).
There are also individuals who draw attention with their work to the spiritual or organic aspect (Irek Wojtczak, Piotr Damasiewicz).
More and more jazz departments are being established at music academies in Poland, which, in addition to creating a musical environment, educate many future jazz musicians. Every year, a great number of excellent jazz graduates come out of the academies. Some of them have also studied in foreign centres, such as the Copenhagen Conservatory, which further opens up and diversifies their approach to music.
By contrast, as I think in most music markets, audiences have at times a sense of over-saturation and over-production of music. In the work of young jazz musicians we can observe a repetitiveness induced by academic approach and lack of experience (including life experience). Although, of course, I would like to emphasise that, there is a large group of exceptional musicians, I would be tempted to say – artists!
Make three names of musicians that innovated jazz music in your country
A very difficult task, but so be it! 😉 Marek Pospieszalski, Kamil Piotrowicz and Piotr Damasiewicz. Although we also have very interesting pianist-composers Grzegorz Tarwid and Piotr Orzechowski, and of course violinist Tomasz Chyła…. Yet, I give up (laughs)
Marek Pospieszalski
What’s the name of a new talent you are particularly fond of?
Almost every day I find out about some interesting debut! I am shocked by how many creative, technically excellent musicians there are! I have met many through our 7 Virtual Jazz Club competition, including NoSax NoClar, Tuva Halse 5et and Khalid Razick.
What’s your favorite genre within jazz? Why?
Even though I am a musicologist and journalist, and in my work I have to try to name phenomena in music, if something fascinates me, it is not because of its genre. Although the most interesting and appealing to me is the jazz exploration in folk music (Arab, Jewish, North and West African).
Of course, because of my interest in the history of African-American culture, I love the early days of jazz, when there were no clearly defined directions and musicians simply played music. However, if I have to pinpoint a time, the hard bop period was certainly that creative and rich time for jazz, and the richness of creativity, the unrestrained pursuit of new developments, while sticking to the groove was unique to that time. This period is a bottomless well when it comes to passionate and unique records, there is still much to discover!
Do you think that schools can teach improvisation?
Theoretically, they teach harmonic solutions and show the tools you can use to improvise. But is this actually improvisation? On the one hand, workshop and knowledge help in mature improvisation, technique after all is very important when improvising, it allows the musician to control the instrument and have no boundaries. However, I believe that to truly improvise you have to give yourself permission, and this is a spiritual path, an inner work that the musician has to work through himself – it is a life, musical and spiritual experience. Because it all boils down to self-acceptance, permission to make mistakes, openness to mistakes and, above all, true, sincere CURIOSITY.
Name a record that every jazz lover should own.
These are the questions journalists love to answer because they can prove themselves and I’ll try to put the problem another way, in jazz there is nothing we should or shouldn’t – neither musicians nor listeners. If we take off the precepts, the rules, and open ourselves up to the music, then we will know the real world of jazz. It doesn’t matter whether the jazz lover gets to know jazz from the records Kind of Blue, Schizophrenia, ‘Round About Midnight, In a Silent Way, A Love Supreme, Blue Train, Workout, Silver’s Blue, Solo Monk, or even from the love songs recorded by Armstrong and Fitzgerald –different people get affected by different jazz, but the most important thing is that jazz offers opportunities to get to know it from different sides. It’s the same with world religions, each culture learns about God or the possibility of spiritual development from different angles – the most important thing is that people will have the opportunity to interact with the sacred.
Then, what made you love jazz?
Growing up in Poland as a half-Arab, I never felt that I fully belonged to my country. These are difficult issues and problems of identity… and it was in jazz or blues (or African-American music in general) that I found my ‘promised land’. Suddenly, it turns out that someone is playing according to their inner pulse, their truth, their loneliness, their misunderstanding… And these codes are completely understandable to me, and I even identify with them. It turns out that in the space of this music there is freedom, but also some unnamed collectivity. Needless to say, this pulse enchanted by the rhythm simply draws you in and doesn’t let you go anymore 😉
I listened to a great variety of music before jazz and still do, but only jazz (and old blues and pre-blues forms), Arabic and folk music speak directly to me.
What are your future projects?
The most important thing for me now is to finalise my thesis and defend my PhD. The second thing is the research group I mentioned. We’ve only just set it up, but it’s a milestone in Polish research because it creates a real community of popular music researchers, and it legitimises and institutionalises popular music research – we hope that it will change the way other researchers think about it, and that it will make people realise that scholarly work about jazz, popular music, is just as important as the work of Chopin, Moniuszko or Prokofiev and Penderecki. I also have a publishing plan, but that’s a secret for now. All I can say is that I want to make a real contribution to popularising knowledge of the history of jazz and blues in my country.
Invariably, I want to work for jazz and blues, educate about African-American culture in Poland, work with musicians and everyone to whom jazz is important.