 Seven Stairs to Hell is a project by Marek Walarowski, in which both the compositions and the performances are the result of his authored concept. Although the musical genre is based on spontaneous improvisation, the shaping of its present form took many years. The jazz music direction it creates has been termed by its author Dual Jazz. The direction’s basis is a widely conceived duality of contrasting and complementary elements. It is expressed not only through musical means customarily identical with jazz, but also a clear-cut, emotional changeability of musical narrative, which breaks with the succession of improvised solo parts typical of jazz to create an ongoing dialogue between the instruments that eschews all existing models. In the piano, a universal use of both hands is required – sometimes leading to polyphonic linearity – as is the all-directional use of the instrument’s possibilities in register, texture, articulation, and sonoristic qualities. Marek Walrowski’s manner of operating with the sonic material in jazz melody and harmony is unique and sets a high standard. The musicians participating in the recording – Jedrzej Laciak (acoustic bass guitar) and Michal Dziewinski (percussion) – find a perfect existence in the musical space shaped by Marek Walarowski’s artistic vision, demonstrating a high quality of technique, creativity, sensitivity, and openness. The author himself underwent a thorough pianistic and compositional training; his output includes jazz, pop music, and symphonic scores. This versatility allows him to freely and maturely operate with form, while surpassing the jazz tradition. Marek Walarowki’s Dual Jazz musical concept in nutshell is a free employment of all available means of shaping the musical fabric with respect for the greatest values that are simultaneously identical with jazz. The musicians’ perfectly mastered technique allows them to rise above elementary questions and serves the achievement of complete performance freedom. The ability to reconcile erudition with unbridled imagination, unpredictability with necessary anticipation, the rational and emotional point of view, awareness with intuition, tradition with originality, and finally, solo domination with ensemble partnership, as well as a rarely encountered variety and concentration of expressional means, while retaining the care for detail, formal logic and flow, set together the framework for artistic freedom, expressed through the clearly original and recognizable style of Marek Walarowski.
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