Michał Urbaniak — Ecstasy (1978)
Movement before thought
By Rafi Mercer
Some records arrive with a thesis. Others arrive with a mood. Ecstasy belongs firmly to the second camp — a record that doesn’t argue its case, but proves it through motion. Released in 1978, this album finds Michał Urbaniak at a point where jazz, funk, and everyday physicality briefly aligned, before the decades over-intellectualised both dance music and listening culture.
Urbaniak had already lived several musical lives by this point. A classically trained violinist turned jazz modernist, he moved from Poland to New York with a restless curiosity, absorbing Miles-era electric jazz, street-level funk, and the muscular optimism of late-’70s Black American music. Ecstasy is the sound of that collision settling into something unforced. It’s not fusion as spectacle. It’s fusion as ease.
From the opening bars, the album signals its intent: rhythm first, virtuosity second. The basslines are rounded and human, never over-compressed, carrying the record forward with a gentle insistence. Drums sit back just enough to breathe. Over the top, Urbaniak’s electric violin doesn’t dominate — it converses. He plays as if aware that the groove will survive without him, which paradoxically gives his lines more authority.
The title track, “Ecstasy,” is a lesson in restraint. It doesn’t chase climax. It loops, settles, repeats — trusting that repetition itself can be expressive. This is dance music in the most private sense: shoulders loosening, feet shifting, posture improving. There’s no instruction to “get up.” You simply do.
What’s striking, listening now, is how little the album tries to impress. Late-’70s jazz-funk can often feel trapped between radio friendliness and technical overreach. Ecstasy avoids both. Tracks like “Just a Funky Feeling” and “A Day in the Park” lean into warmth rather than precision. Vocals — often supplied by Urszula Dudziak — are treated as texture rather than focal point, woven into the mix like another instrument rather than a demand for attention.
This approach gives the album longevity. There’s no dated studio trickery screaming for context. Instead, the record feels anchored in something more durable: the idea that music can be sophisticated without becoming stiff. Urbaniak never forgets that jazz, at its root, is social. It’s meant to move between people, not sit on a pedestal.
In the wider arc of Urbaniak’s discography, Ecstasy might not be the most radical statement, but it may be one of the most human. It captures a moment when jazz musicians briefly allowed funk to teach them something essential: that rhythm is not a compromise, and that accessibility doesn’t equal dilution.
Listening today, Ecstasy feels quietly corrective. A reminder that not all serious music needs to be still, and not all danceable music needs to shout. Some records simply help you arrive in your body, ready for the day.
And on a Friday morning, that feels like a small luxury worth returning to.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters.
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