Discography

"Black Pen"

The material for the album called "Black Pen" was chosen mostly from its own compositions by Sławomir Bielawiec. These pieces are a stylistic combination of many jazz conventions. From beautiful lyrical to rhythm & blues and Latin rhythms. 

This is how the band's album was assessed by dr. Wojciech Siwak, a cultural expert from the University of Bialystok, in his latest publication: 

"I did not think that the music that I remember from the 1980s would be rediscovered. And in what form? It often happens that a person returns to the past and beautifies it. Thirty years ago it seemed to me that Antykwariat's music would not defend itself in Poland, at a time when everyone was interested in changing the system, and rock music was experiencing its golden age. Now, while listening to the new Antiquarian Store, I didn't have to embellish anything. The antiquities shop has matured like old wine, and not only because the musicians are older. Nothing could be more wrong. The group reactivated after many years in Chicago is a completely new quality. For something extraordinary has happened. In the present global world, we can participate in unusual meetings at any time, East meets West, America, Europe, music, graphics, culture, politics. On the album "Black Pen" we see a wonderful meeting of the European jazz tradition with American rhythm and style. The antiquarian Jazz Group on the album "Black Pen" invites us to a journey through European lyric and Slavic nostalgia, through American mainstream jazz, to funk, Latin and rock. This can give the impression of eclecticism or an excessive mixing of styles. However, it is not so. These different traditions, European, Slavic, American, jazz and classics, funk and Latin, rock and postbebop come together on this album as ingredients for a good drink. "Black Pen" is an album that immerses the listener in various moods, from the title track combining in one space the aesthetics of Chick Corea's best songs and his "Return To Forever" with modern postpebop, through the lyrical lullaby from Roman Polański's film "Rosemary Baby", funky "Feel That Rhythm", classic "My Ballad", Latin hot "Midnight Samba", to the jazz-rock final sparkling with spring colors "Spring".

This album is not only music, it is the colors that come out of each track. Listen to her by closing your eyes. Piano inlays by Sławomir Bielawiec, referring to Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Jarret, Mc Coy Tayner, the round and strong timbre of Jan Zieńko's guitar, ear-tickling sax phrases by Rob Dent, the elegance and precision of Art Davis's trumpet, pearly drops of Jacek Berlin's xylophone, all on a solid, a strong foundation, which is the groove of the rhythm section - bassists Andrzej Grzelak and Krzysztof Pabian and Jarek Łukomski on drums.