"Ale Jazz!" by sanah and Vito Bambino

I think this will be the first song written (almost) completely in Polish that I’ll be writing about on my blog. It’s about time, because, for the last two years, Polish songs, artists, and genres have made up the majority of the music I listen to. I’ll try to make it as clear and accessible as possible for those who don’t speak Polish. The song is “Ale Jazz!” by sanah and Vito Bambino.

First, I’ll briefly mention the artists. sanah (she stylizes her name with a lowercase “s”) is the stage name of Zuzanna Irena Jurczak, a singer from Warsaw who gained popularity on YouTube before singing and playing the violin at a series of festivals, concerts, and competitions.

Mateusz Dopieralski, or Vito Bambino, is a German singer and actor (among other things) with a Polish background. He was born in Poland before moving to Germany at a young age, where he began singing and acting. He is part of the band Bitamina.

So, before I get into what I like about the song, I should probably explain what it means, or what it seems to mean. The title literally translates to “But, Jazz!” though I think a better translation is “What Jazz!” (almost as an interjection). The song has two perspectives:

One, sung by sanah, is that of a girl who is looking for love, but she realizes that at some point, it can be more trouble than it’s worth and there’s nothing wrong with taking a step back and focusing on other things. The first two verses are dedicated to this shift in mindset.

The second perspective, sung by Vito Bambino, is that of a boy who has been stood up, only finding out due to the girl posting a picture of her drinking coffee by herself on Instagram. He gives up and decides to move on from her.

The actual song itself seems very centered around the drumbeat. I usually am not too interested in songs that focus mostly on just the beat, but “Ale Jazz!” has plenty of interesting, fleeting bits and pieces which latch onto the beat for a few moments before being replaced with different ones. A sparse bass part, choir-like backing vocals, keyboard flairs and riffs, and an instrument that shows up at the beginning of the song and a few more times throughout it that I just can’t seem to identify. All of these seem to come and go at the right time in the song, which makes it feel fairly even, yet dynamic at the same time. The lyrics being very catchy helps too. Even before I understood them in their entirety, I often found the melody playing in my head.

I’m not the biggest fan of Vito Bambino’s other work, but I really like sanah’s music. “No sory” (Well, Sorry), “Co ja robię tutaj” (What Am I Doing Here?), and “Kapela gra” (The Band Plays) are probably my favorites of her’s.

Polish pop is in a very different place than American pop, so if anyone likes “Ale Jazz!,” there are definitely some other gems to be found across the charts there. Also, there's an English version of the song. The lyrics are about something else entirely and Vito Bambino is not a part of the project, but it might be preferable to those who don't speak Polish. Both the Polish and English versions are included below.