Chicago Jazz Festival: Luke Malewicz Heritage Quartet

 

Distinctly of an older time, but modern.  Distinctly new, but rooted in the past.  It’s that back and forth between the generations where the Luke Malewicz Heritage Quartet made its home for its Chicago Jazz Fest appearance Saturday at the Jazz & Heritage Pavilion.  Born in Poland but relocated to the U.S. as he entered his teens, trombonist Luke Malewicz channeled the music of both lands, old and new.

Luke Malewicz Heritage Quartet

Along with his Heritage Quartet of trumpeter Chad McCullough, drummer Jon Deitemyer and bassist Patrick Mulcahy, Malewicz adapted Polish-origin compositions like Magdalena Nazaretanka’s folk song “Polskie Kwiaty” and Michał Ogiński’s polonaise Pożegnanie Ojczyzny” for a jazz quartet, mixing in modern pieces like the magnetic “Heathers” to return the music to the present tense.

Sometimes trading solos, but even better when working in concert, the trombone-trumpet duo of Malewicz and McCullough were voices that carried far.  And as a nice balance to keep things grounded, Mulcahy got his bass to hum the tune by way of creating an undercurrent, except for those times that Deitemyer utilized his drum set as the tool to push that undercurrent out front.

It was a real nice way to start out the day in the Jazz & Heritage Pavilion.