Saturday, January 06, 2007

Czesław Niemen

Czesław Niemen (real name Czesław Juliusz Wydrzycki) (February 16, 1939 - January 17, 2004) was one of the most important and original Polish rock musicians, singing mainly in the Polish language.

Niemen was born in Wasiliszki in Grodno district. He was a singer with a wide voice scale and rich intonation, a composer and a keyboard player. He made his debut in the early 1960s, singing a Polish kind of rock and roll and soul music. His song of 1967, Dziwny jest ten świat (Strange Is This World) became the most important Polish protest song of that era. He was one of the first Poles to wear long hair and colourful clothes, introducing psychedelia style to communist Poland. The first three records he recorded with his band "Akwarele" (The Watercolour Paintings), later he recorded with his new bands: "Enigmatic", "Grupa Niemen" and "Aerolit". In 1969 he changed musical style to progressive rock, recording the monumental album Enigmatic. The most notable song from it was Bema pamięci żałobny rapsod (A Mournful Rhapsody in Memory of Jozef Bem), based on the 19th century poem by Cyprian Kamil Norwid. The rest of Enigmatic songs were poetry as well. Niemen played Hammond organ, later mellotron and Moog synthesizer on his records.

In the early 1970s, Niemen recorded three English language albums under the CBS label, and in 1974 he recorded Mourner's Rhapsody with Jan Hammer and Rick Laird from Mahavishnu Orchestra. In the seventies, Niemen turned to jazz-rock fusion and electronic music (Katharsis album). In 1972 he also contributed with a song perfomed by him in the movie The Wedding (Wesele, 1972) by film director Andrzej Wajda , laureate of an honorary Oscar. Later, Niemen has also composed film soundtrack and theater music. In the 1990s he also showed interest in painting and computer graphics. He died of cancer in Warsaw.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czeslaw_Niemen

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Czesław Niemen - Niemen Enigmatic (1969)

















Czesław Niemen - Czy Mnie Jeszcze Pamietasz (1968)















Czesław Niemen - Czlowiek Jam Niewdzieczny (1970-71)

















Czesław Niemen - Czas Jak Rzeka (1970)














Czesław Niemen - Sen O Warszawie (1969)
This album contains early, rare versions of songs recorded with Niebiesko-Czarni in the early 60's (tracks 1-16) + original recordings with Michel Colombier Orchestra (17-20)















Czesław Niemen - Mourner's Rhapsody (1974)















Czesław Niemen - Dziwny Jest Ten Swiat (1967)




















Czesław Niemen - Sukces (1968)















Czesław Niemen - Strange Is This World (1972)
















Czesław Niemen - Russische Lieder (1973)














Czesław Niemen - Ode To Venus (1973)












Czesław Niemen - Marionetki (1972)











Czesław Niemen - Niemen Aerolit (1974)













Czesław Niemen - Katharsis (1975)













Czesław Niemen - Idee Fixe I (1977)










Czesław Niemen - Postscriptum (1980)













Enjoy! ;)

18 comments:

Betelgeuse said...

Hi lisa!welcome back!(sorry but i check your blog only now!)bye!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for all of the Niemen ... and welcome back.

Gwyn said...

Hi Lisa

Thanx a lot for all the Niemen. I looked since years for it, see him 1972 in munich - it was great!!!

Greetz, Gwyn

Anonymous said...

Hello Lisa.
Your blog is very nice and you share very good things.Please re-up TASAVALLAN PRESSIDENTI-second album from march 2006 for me.Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much.Great records!

Anonymous said...

What a great post! Cheers from Poland.

zafreth said...

Those discs are really great!!!

Anonymous said...

Just Great stuff

Max said...

Wow! This is going to take a while to listen too but I've enjoyed the tracks i've heard from him before so I'm sure it'll be worth it. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this great stuff. If you happen to have Laboratorium and Modri Efekt or some other Polish prog stuff could you post them please?

Joe
Greetings from Sarajevo

Anonymous said...

Oh my God!!!

I've been looking for those records for the past few years... I only own the first Niemen LP -- so it's great to see all the other stuff here.

Thank you so much!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this incredible archive. I just found out about this artist here, and now I'm magically (thanks to your work)clued in.
http://mog.com/Groon/blog_post/146236

oowawa said...

Hi Lisa,

I just finished listening to Czeslaw Niemen's Mourner's Rhapsody and was stunned. This is certainly a prog classic of the first order. Thanks very much for turning the world on to this and for all the effort you put into your awesome site.

Best Wishes,
Mike

Adrian Marcatto said...

Hello Lisa.
Thanks for the Niemen's posts.
I'am brazilian and I've polish descendence.
Congratulations for this excellent blog!

Pausts said...

Thank you very much.

GrAbJet said...

Absolutely fabulous (Niemen)!
Thank you so much!
What a collection in one place....

Steve said...

Stunning-all these CN's in one place-you are awesome, Lisa!

espm06 said...

Thanks Lisa! Awesome and beautiful!