Marcin Wasilewski is a Polish pianist and composer, winner of the 2009 Down Beat as “Piano Rising Star” and now considered one of the most interesting musicians on the European jazz scene. Growing up in a very stimulating family environment (Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock were listened to in his home), he began studying piano as a child and, after an initial approach to classical music, discovered by chance at the age of 13 a video of a Keith Jarrett concert in Japan (which he confessed to having watched every day for about a year and a half), he began to dream of playing jazz. In 1993, together with double bassist Sławomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michał Miśkiewicz, Wasilewski founded the Simple Acoustic Trio (an award-winning and highly regarded ensemble that also served as the rhythm section of the great trumpeter Tomasz Stańko and now, 25 years later, bears his name), which will offer highly innovative jazz with an obvious ECM matrix, characterized, likewise, by a marked poetic valence.
