The Andy Middleton Quartet featuring Piotr Wyleżoł, Alan Jones and Tomáš Baroš reflects a decades-long partnership between the bandleader and Jones. As Middleton says, “This band allows me to pursue the depths of my creativity as a composer and the heights of improvisational group interplay. With the harmonic and orchestrational skills of Wyleżoł, whose background in both the classical and jazz worlds has given him an immense vocabulary, I am able to paint with a palette of color evoking any shade of emotion I can imagine. The instrumental prowess and forward motion that Tomáš brings to the band adds another voice to my tunes while generating the heartbeat of the band. American drummer Alan is one of the most profound and talented jazz musicians I’ve ever met and is the drummer forever in my imagination, the indefatigable source of swing and interplay who brings me to my most creative and inspired moments as a musician. With this band my music comes to life as with no other group, growing and deepening with every concert. I am attracted to lyricism, authenticity, breadth of emotional expressiveness, thematic development and tonal color. The European character that Piotr and Tomáš bring enriches and supports my own experience living in Europe as an American for 20 years and in New York City for 19 years before that. We play a ballad in every set, when the core of my jazz feeling expresses itself most clearly. We play forms that open rooms of free play where we spontaneously create structure anew over the already composed architecture of my pieces. We play fast, we move so slowly the flow can seem gone, we play loudly, we drop to a whisper, we breathe together in every moment. We swing hard, we pull the time straight out over mixed meter, we open our hearts to each other and to the audience as we explore where each piece leads us.”