Interview with Cezary L. Lerski
This interview, in its edited Polish version, was originally published at
https://polish-jazz.blogspot.com/2026/08/sygna-trwa-dalej.html
POLISH JAZZ BLOG: HOW DID YOU END UP RUNNING NOT TWO?
Cezary Lerski: I'm not supposed to discuss the protocols. What I can say is that a plain vinyl record arrived with no label, no catalog number. I dropped the needle and Marek's voice came through over a quiet free-bass drone: "Cezary, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep Not Two alive." Then twelve seconds of instructions I've sworn never to repeat, followed by "this record will self-destruct in five seconds." And it did.
PJB: MAREK WINIARSKI BUILT THIS LABEL IN KRAKÓW IN 1998. WHAT DID YOU FEEL YOU HAD TO PROTECT WHEN YOU TOOK OVER EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP, AND WHAT DID YOU FEEL FREE TO CHANGE?
CL: The thing to protect is the aperture — Marek's willingness to put a straight-ahead bebop date and a two-disc electro-acoustic fever dream under the same logo without apology. That openness is the label's spine. What I felt free to change is reach: connecting musicians and projects across borders more deliberately, and making the catalog properly visible online so it stops being a secret handshake among collectors.
PJB: YOU'VE SPENT MORE THAN TWO DECADES DOCUMENTING POLISH JAZZ AT POLISHJAZZ.COM, AND NOW YOU'RE STEERING NOT TWO. DO YOU THINK OF YOURSELF FIRST AS AN ARCHIVIST, A CRITIC, OR A PRODUCER?
CL: Honestly, the three have never been separable for me. An archivist keeps the record straight, a critic decides what's worth listening to twice, and a producer makes sure the thing exists at all. With Not Two I do all three in the same afternoon — and the catalog rewards that.
PJB: THE CATALOG RUNS FROM WOJTEK GROBORZ'S BEBOP TO KYLE BRUCKMANN'S "DEAR EVERYONE." IS THERE ACTUALLY A THREAD HOLDING SOMETHING THAT BROAD TOGETHER, OR IS THE BREADTH ITSELF THE POINT?
CL: The breadth is the point, but it isn't randomness. The thread is conviction — every one of these records is made by people who mean it, whether they're swinging on a Parker tune or detonating a surrealist text across ninety-nine voices. Not Two has never released background music. If there's a house style, it's intensity.
PJB: A LOT OF THE EARLY CATALOG TIES BACK TO KRAKÓW'S JEWISH CULTURE FESTIVAL AND THE RADICAL JEWISH CULTURE SCENE — HASIDIC NEW WAVE, FRANK LONDON, GREG WALL. WHAT DOES THAT LINEAGE MEAN TO THE LABEL'S IDENTITY?
CL: It's one of the deep currents. When Hasidic New Wave played the Bagatela in 1998, you had a New York downtown band performing a few kilometres from the shtetls where that music's DNA came from. That feedback loop — memory moving across borders and coming home transformed — is very much what Not Two is about. The label was born in a city layered with that history, and the music keeps reaching back to it.
PJB: YOU ARE INVOLVED WITH ACTE PRÉALABLE ON THE POLISH CLASSICAL MUSIC SIDE. HOW DO THOSE RELATIONSHIPS FEED BACK INTO NOT TWO?
CL: It keeps me from becoming parochial. And Acte Préalable (acteprealable.com)—with its 600‑plus titles of outstanding yet unfortunately obscure Polish classical music recordings—is the gold standard for archival ambition. Kudos to Jan A. Jarnicki, who built it all out of thin air, without any tangible support. Standing next to that achievement raises my own bar for how Not Two documents what it documents.
PJB: THE LABEL HAS CLEARLY LEANED INTO DIGITAL — MOST OF THE CATALOG IS NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM AND BUY WORLDWIDE. WAS THAT A PHILOSOPHICAL SHIFT OR A PRACTICAL ONE?
CL: Both, but practical first. A free-improvisation session pressed in a small run and sitting in a few storerooms helps no one. Digital means a fan in São Paulo or Seoul can hear a 2003 Frode Gjerstad date tonight. The philosophy follows the practice: if you believe this music matters, you owe it the widest possible door. That's the whole reason behind the new site.
PJB: ONE MORE THING ON DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION. THERE'S A LOT OF BAD FEELING AMONG MUSICIANS ABOUT SPOTIFY IN PARTICULAR. SO HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY APPROACH IT?
CL: We lean hard on Bandcamp, but if an artist agrees we'll also put the music everywhere — Apple, Tidal, Spotify, even in TikTok libraries, all of them. The honest truth is most jazz musicians earn almost nothing from streaming; it can take tens of thousands of streams to make a dollar, which is exactly why so many players have soured on Spotify. Bandcamp is different — a handful of devoted fans buying an album beats the big digital platforms easily. Think of it as vinyl versus radio. Radio is everywhere, it's free, and it's how people discover you. But the listeners who really care still buy the record — they want the thing itself, and they want to support the person who made it. Streaming provides the reach; (vinyl) Bandcamp Hi-Fi downloads provide the value. Far from being at odds, the two form the most efficient balance of audience and revenue.
PJB: YOU WORK AS AN EDITOR, PRODUCER, BLOGGER, PODCASTER — AND MORE THAN ONCE YOU'VE WRITTEN ABOUT MOTORCYCLES. DOES THAT RANGE PULL YOU IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS, OR DOES IT FORM A COHERENT THREAD FOR YOU?
CL: It connects, though I admit it looks scattered from the outside. The motorcycle thing actually goes back to the early 1990s, when I lived in Rapid City, South Dakota, only 30 miles from Sturgis. There was not a great deal to do out there for fifty weeks of the year — and then every summer the largest motorcycle rally in the couPJBy would roll in, and suddenly the whole region filled up with free-spirited people in black leather, making a glorious amount of noise. Honestly, it wasn't so different from a good free-improv festival: loud, unruly, deeply committed, and not for everyone. The writing all comes from the same instinct, though. Pay close attention to a thing most people pass over, then tell someone why it's worth their time. Whether it's a back road, a leather-clad stranger from Sturgis, or a bass clarinet solo, the job is the same — context and visibility for things working at the edges.
PJB: YOU NOW LIVE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA FOOTHILLS IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, A LONG WAY FROM KRAKÓW. HAS THE DISTANCE CHANGED HOW YOU HEAR THIS MUSIC, OR HOW YOU RUN THE LABEL?
CL: The distance clarifies. Up here the catalog isn't a local scene I'm inside of — it's something I can see whole, from the outside, the way a hiker sees a valley from the ridge. Kraków will always be the root, but running the label from the Sierra foothills suits the music's character: independent, a little remote, made for people willing to travel to find it.
PJB: LET'S TALK ABOUT WHAT'S AHEAD. THE LABEL IS CALLING THIS ITS NEXT CHAPTER — WHAT DOES THAT ACTUALLY MEAN? IS THERE NEW MUSIC IN THE PIPELINE?
CL: There is, and that's the part I'm most excited about. The catalog isn't a closed archive — we have new releases already in the pipeline, with more in conversation. The geography has changed, the mission hasn't: we're listening for new work the same way Marek always did, and we remain open to physical editions when a project calls for it, even as digital does the heavy lifting on reach. The phrase I keep coming back to is that the signal carries on — louder, freer, and further than before. After nearly three decades, that still feels true.
PJB: AND FOR THE LISTENERS — IS THERE A REAL WAY FOR FANS TO BE PART OF THIS, OR IS THAT JUST A NICE SENTIMENT?
CL: It's real, and it's central. A small independent label is only as strong as the community around it — the artists bring the work, but the listeners give it a life beyond the recording, in writing, in conversation, in the simple act of handing music to someone who needs to hear it. There are concrete ways in: share reviews and materials with us, help spread the word about a release. And for anyone who wants to go further, there's a path to becoming an executive producer on a new release through crowdfunding — actually helping bring a record into the world. That direct line between the people who make the music and the people who love it has always been the heart of Not Two. We're just keeping it open.
PJB: OF EVERYTHING IN THE CATALOG, IS THERE A RELEASE YOU'D HAND TO SOMEONE WHO'S NEVER HEARD A NOTE OF THIS MUSIC — THE DOOR IN?
CL: I’ll answer a bit differently than usual, because I happen to have the perfect example at hand. One Voice has just been released — the first volume in a new series of compilations from the Not Two catalog. It’s the best entry point we’ve ever had. Eleven musicians, solo recordings from 2001–2020, and no one appears more than once. For new listeners, it’s a golden middle ground: no need to know the label’s history, no context required. For longtime followers, it’s a fresh constellation that reveals connections you don’t hear when listening to the catalog album by album.
But wait, you must listen to Umezu’s “Alchemic Live” first, named for Kraków’s Alchemia club. It’s transformation through collision — elements gathered from everywhere he’s traveled, the prog-rock guitar folded naturally into the experiment. A vivid, full‑throttle testament to Umezu’s reach and one of the most electrifying entries in the Not Two catalog.
PJB: MANY REVIEWS IN THE CURRENT CATALOG ARE SIGNED "FREDDIE FREELOADER." WHO IS HE?
CL: We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of Freddie Freeloader. There are unverified reports of a man who, throughout the 1960s, snuck into every Miles Davis concert on three continents and never once bought a ticket — slipping past the door during the count-off, always gone before the encore. Whether that man went on to write several hundred meticulous album blurbs for a free-jazz label is precisely the kind of claim we are not in a position to address at this time.
PJB: THE CATALOG HAS 348 RELEASES. BE HONEST — HAVE YOU ACTUALLY LISTENED TO ALL OF THEM?
CL: All of them. Twice. Some of the box sets, more times than any licensed medical professional would recommend.
PJB: WERE THERE ANY REJECTED NOT TWO SLOGANS BEFORE YOU SETTLED ON "FREE MUSIC WITHOUT BORDERS"?
CL: Several. "Not Two: Because One Wasn't Difficult Enough." "You Won't Hum It, But You'll Remember It." "Now 30% More Bass Clarinet." There was a brief, dark period where I lobbied hard for "Not Two: We Listened So You Don't Have To," but the musicians objected, correctly, on the grounds that you absolutely do have to. We landed where we landed.
PJB: IF NOT TWO COULD SIGN ANY MUSICIAN, LIVING OR DEAD, WHO WOULD IT BE?
CL: Taylor Swift, obviously. Picture it: a forty-minute solo bass-clarinet meditation, no vocals, no references to former boyfriends, catalog number MW13. It would be the least-streamed thing she's ever done, and easily the bravest.
But seriously? The Grateful Dead. They understood something we believe in — that the recording is just the souvenir, and the real thing happens live, differently every night, for people willing to follow it. Every Dead show was an improvisation that trusted its audience. That's the spirit of this catalog — it's why the majority of our albums are live recordings. The Dead just had better parking.
PJB: WE HAVE TO ASK ABOUT YOUR DAY JOB. YOU HOLD AN MBA IN ACCOUNTING FROM BARUCH COLLEGE IN MANHATTAN. WHAT ON EARTH DOES ACCOUNTING HAVE TO DO WITH FREE, AVANT-GARDE JAZZ?
CL: Everything, and people are always surprised to hear it. Baruch — the Zicklin School, part of CUNY, with one of the most rigorous accounting programs in the couPJBy — trained me to look at a messy, sprawling system and find the structure underneath. That's the exact skill a free-improvisation set demands. To an uPJBained ear it sounds like chaos; to a trained one it's a ledger that balances in real time. Every ePJBy has a counter-ePJBy, every gesture has a consequence, and nothing is actually random — it just hasn't been reconciled yet. Accounting taught me that freedom and rigor aren't opposites. The best improvisers are the most disciplined accountants of sound I know. They simply keep their books in a key signature.
PJB: FAIR ENOUGH. AS BOTH AN ACCOUNTANT AND AN OCCASIONAL EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, YOU'VE SEEN THE BUSINESS FROM MULTIPLE ANGLES — SO WHAT'S YOUR TAKE ON THE PERENNIAL QUESTION:
HOW DO YOU MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS FROM JAZZ?
CL: Start with two.