Polish-born, now London-resident guitarist Jakub Klimiuk is making a mark on the scene here as a player since he graduated from the Guildhall last year. But as his soon-to-be released CD (un)balanced shows, he’s equally intent on developing as a composer. Feature by Jon Turney.

Both the playing side and the compositional side of Jakub Klimiuk‘s musical expression have been crucially influenced by his move to the UK, where he arrived as part of the Erasmus student exchange programme in 2020, after first studying jazz guitar in Gdańsk.

The quintet who made the CD, after their debut EP Reluctance in 2022, began to come together soon after he fetched up in London. Drummer Adam Merrell was the first band member he had a chance to play with and “I was immediately captivated by his unique touch, feel and endless creativity”, Klimiuk says.

Their partnership becoming the foundation of a regular band then seemed “like a natural process”, he recalls. “Adam introduced me to brilliant musicians he had played with and had a shared musical language with, the sax player Simeon May and bassist Harry Pearce aka Kinzan.” He also met pianist, Cody Moss, at the Guildhall and, voilà, a quintet.

Like any good jazz composer, Klimiuk sees all the players influencing the character of the music. “There’s a significant feeling of tension in the way the band sounds and interprets my compositions. Our different backgrounds, with inspirations reaching from trad jazz to the Scandinavian improvised scene, and the juxtaposition of my rather mainstream jazz writing and the free-improvisational element coming from the band members, stretching the written material, heightens the lack of balance in the title.

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That notion has deeper personal roots, too, he relates: “The compositions on the album were written to explore contrasting states of mind, largely related to my move to London and the experience of its fast-paced life and the overstimulation which one has to deal with on a daily basis”. 

The transition was tricky for one who hails originally from a small town, Hajnówka, in Poland. And although he is full of praise for the Guildhall’s effort to deliver in-person teaching between lockdowns, Covid got in the way of wider exploration back in 2020. As he recalls now, “One reason I decided to come back to the UK after the Erasmus programme was that the pandemic meant I did not to properly get to know the London music scene, which turned out to be incredibly inspiring and diverse. Some of the music on the album is definitely influenced by a strange combination of feelings caused by the pandemic reality – excitement coming from being in this vibrant city mixed with alienation.”

That comes out in different ways on the very varied composed pieces on the album, which are interspersed with small improvised appetisers, referred to as “studies” between the longer tracks (a device also heard recently on Jasper Hoiby’s latest piano trio recording). The inspiration varies, too, from a piece inspired by monochromatic painting, Absence of Colour, which also explores Schoenbergian 12-tone methods, to one based on a line from a solo Simeon May delivered that caught Klimiuk’s ear as a melody too good to leave in the air.

The pieces on the album are ambitious, episodically complex, and somewhat programmatic – with the composer’s notes indicating work intended to evoke hope doubt, optimism, pessimism, homesickness and even – as one title has it – scepticism. Where such feelings rest for the hearer is up to them, though. “The titular (un)balance, to me, is a specific state between order and chaos”, he reflects. But “I would like the mood and the intention behind the album to be interpreted freely by the listener”. And he suggests that the short solo and duo improvisations, which are “completely separate from my compositions”, add to the interpretive freedom.

That freedom is also present for the players in a jazz performance, needless to say, and Klimiuk’s suite of compositions is a nice example of bringing all these possibilities together in a way that produces evocative music. As usual, one thing leads to another, creatively speaking – a process exemplified by Mark Lockheart’s standout contributions to two tracks on the CD.

The composed piece of the pair, the aforementioned Scepticism, began with that feeling but also with a sound. “While writing I came up with an idea for incorporating the sound of the bass clarinet, which I knew Simeon played very well. That evolved into a piece for a sextet with two horns and I immediately thought of Mark Lockheart’s unique sound. I had the pleasure of taking composition classes with Mark at the Guildhall, but I’ve been a huge fan of his writing and playing for a long time”. Lockheart’s improvising, says Klimiuk, seamlessly blends a modern jazz sound with a deep understanding of the genre’s tradition, and that’s something he is striving for in his own playing. Having nailed the composed piece, Lockheart then contributed a freely improvised duo with Adam Merrell, adding further variety to the proceedings. 

Happily, Lockheart is able to join the quintet for the album launch at the Vortex on release day, May 1st, when the many moods this ambitious young writer seeks to tap into in his composing will be refracted anew in a live show.

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