Mourner's Rhapsody
Mourner's Rhapsody - English-language album by Czesław Niemen, recorded in 1974 in New York, USA. Michał Urbaniak invited his friends (also some members of the famous Mahavishnu Orchestra) to support Niemen after his earlier band left to re-initialise their own band SBB ("Silesian Blues Band"), which now became short for "Search, Breakup and Build", "Sound Beyond Borders" and similar. The album was released in West Germany (1974), the United Kingdom (1975) and the United States (1976). It was re-released on CD in 1993. The main title "Mourner's Rhapsody" is a remake of Niemen 's cult status initial version issued in 1970 on "Enigmatic" on which Michał Urbaniak also participated. Despite the top class cast and progressive music the album didn't sell as good as the initial Polish "Enigmatic", which reached a cult status, or even the earlier albums recorded for CBS Records International with SBB (grupa Niemen), e.g. "Strange Is This World" and "Ode to Venus" (between 1972 and 1974 SBB participated on 5 albums of Niemen and were called Grupa Niemen at this most creative period). In 1974 SBB released their very own first live album "SBB (1)", which immediately reached  cult status in all Central Europe and Soviet Union (where it was distributed illegally in underground) and also across the Iron Curtain presenting a new vital direction in progressive rock music already present in some form on their 5 albums recorded with Niemen. Ufortunately "Mourner's Rhapsody" didn't present this kind of freshness and vitality (also present in Mahavishnu Orchestra) and in 1975 Niemen cast a new Polish band. His new band presented on "Niemen Aerolit" included a phenomenal guitarist Sławomir Piwowar, who eventually joined SBB in 1978. After Niemen passed in 2004 Michał Urbaniak joined SBB in 2016  recording with the band 2 albums.