The Guitar Player's Resource
Heavy metal and hard rock versions of classical music. Well, so it's been done many times in the past, but these guys are pretty good at it. Poland's Mr. Pollack (the band name) submitted their CD-R entitled Air On 6 Strings, which features ten classics by Mozart, Bach, Schubert, Rimsky-Korsakov (he takes on "Flight Of The Bumble Bee"), Daquinn, Beethoven, and Brahms. Guitarist Jacek Polak heads up the group, which also features his brother Grzegorz on drums, Jon Burchell on keyboards and Robert White on bass (full instrumentation, nice!) Jacek is a highly accomplished guitarist who is more than able to do this material justice - fans of this style of music will really have something here they can listen to over and over. The production is clean, the mix is first-rate, the musical choices are hot (Bach's "Badinerie", Mozart's "Turkish March" and Brahms' "Hungarian Dance" are especially noteworthy, but the entire album cooks), and Jacek is exemplary - what more do you need? Except perhaps a record contract!
Jacek has been described as the 'Paganini of the Guitar' by a Slovak periodical. He recorded his first album, called "Qri" in 1991, then began playing festivals, concerts and recording sessions, finally appearing at the International Rock Festival in 1993. In 1996 Jacek recorded his second CD, "Manhattan-One", and then in 1997 put out an instructional video called "Video Instruction School", which made his band even more famous in Poland.
Polak owns all the copyrights and production rights to his music and would love to sign a contract with a record label.
Jacek Polak
Poland
Web site: www.mrpollack.pl