Maciej Obara Quartet

Unloved is the ECM debut of the Polish alto saxophonist Maciej Obara and his Polish-Norwegian quartet. It was his ninth album as a leader and the group's first studio recording, after three live albums on the Polish label For Tune. The music moves between tender lyricism and fiery, impassioned playing. Six of the seven themes are by Obara, and the title track comes from Krzysztof Komeda, the central figure of modern jazz in Poland.

Obara and the pianist Dominik Wania first met in a Tomasz Stanko ensemble about a decade before this session. Since 2012 they have played with two Norwegians, the bassist Ole Morten Vågan and the drummer Gard Nilssen. On ECM, Vågan had played in Thomas Strønen's Time Is A Blind Guide, and Nilssen on Mathias Eick's Skala. The album was recorded at Rainbow Studio in Oslo in January 2017 by Jan Erik Kongshaug and produced by Manfred Eicher. Obara describes his themes as outlines from which the band's sound is set free. He calls the result "more like composing in real time."

Komeda wrote Unloved for Janusz Nasfeter's film of the same name. Here it is a slow, melancholic ballad carried by Wania's piano and Obara's dry alto tone, at the centre of the album. Ula and Joli Bord are gentle, yearning ballads with spare arrangements. Freer improvisation fills the later part of the set. On Echoes, the longest piece at over nine minutes, Obara fires off clipped figures and fast runs that Wania follows closely. The closing Storyteller sets a haunting, almost crying saxophone over rumbling cymbals and low piano notes.

In The Guardian, John Fordham called it "a contemporary-jazz album of character and exhilarating drive." Ian Patterson of All About Jazz heard echoes of Chris Potter, Andy Sheppard and Charles Lloyd, but concluded that Obara is "above all, an original voice." Yahvé de la Cavada in El País singled out Wania as the author of the most exciting solos on the record. London Jazz News (2018) described the closing track as the most impressionistic and heartfelt tune of the set.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2573, first released on 3 November 2017.