70/50

Seventieth birthday, fifty years on stage!

Symphonic Blues

The beginnings of this project can be found in the decade of the 80's of the last century. 
In 1989, at the Rawa Blues festival, Ireneusz Dudek played with his big band enriched with chamber orchestra. It was a big surprise, and a kind of shock to blues fans. Above all, however, it was a dream come true and the realization of an idea that followed Dudek for several years.

Reviewers in the string-guitar-saxophone sound of the orchestra were looking at the influences of John Mayall's work from the days of "Bare Wires" and "Empty Rooms" or the achievements of Sugarcane Harris, but the fact is that the experiment was – as for the Polish blues scene – quite shocking. From that time comes LP "Nowa Płyta" („The New Album”). It turned out that the compact on it the song "Kameralny blues" („The Intimate Blues”) with the text of Krzysztof Daukszewicz was to permanently enter the repertoire and become one of Dudek's cards" – as Andrzej Matysik wrote later in the pages of „Twój Blues” magazine. 

Three years later, Irek Dudek presented his new idea of blues to the audience: a traditional band surrounded by the sound of violin sextet and cello. The idea of connecting two musical worlds – blues and classical music – turned out to be a hit and a ticket to European festivals. Irek Dudek and his Symphonic Blues performed on stages in Austria, the Netherlands and Germany (Innsbruck Blues Night, Heilbronn Jazz & Blues Fest, Groningen Rhythm & Blues Night, Freiburg Blues Monday). "On the posters of these events, the name of the band Dudka was written in no smaller letters than Poppa Chubby, Luther Allison, or Robben Ford" - wrote  Andrzej Matysik in „Twój Blues", mentioning that stage of the activity of Irek Dudek.

Symphonic Blues was also presented in the prestigious Cologne club "Subway". Irek Dudek performed there as the first Pole and one of the few European musicians. The concert was broadcast on German television WDR and ZDF, and the project was also interested in the German blues promoter and publisher Thomas Ruf. The atmosphere of that evening we can get to know thanks to the album "Live in Subway" (which has received a Polish reissue as "New Vision of Blues"). 

From time to time, the leader returned to this innovative incarnation, and just over two decades after the concert premiere, he presented symphonic blues as the part of the Rawa Blues Festival, performing a spectacular concert in the NOSPR hall with NOSPR orchestra and Krzesimir Dębski as the conductor.

Discography

New Vision of Blues 1994

New vision of blues

  1. Everyday I have the blues
  2. Tell me pretty baby
  3. Dudi boogie
  4. Ain't no need her
  5. Za dużo by umrzeć, za mało by żyć
  6. Od nowa
  7. Nie zapraszaj mnie
  8. Wstawaj
  9. From Alojz to Alex
  10. Blues A
  11. Flute tune
  12. Something must have changed
  13. Przebierka
  14. Gloria