Recorded in November 2005, Lontano was the conclusion to a trilogy of albums recorded by the Tomasz Stańko Quartet: the trumpeter, now in his sixties, backed by a trio of fellow Poles half his age, who'd continue to produce great music in their own right. The quartet's expansive, cinematic feel for space and patient, at times near-ambient improvisational pace reached their apex in the diffuse, impressionistic music on this aptly-titled album.
At the album's core are its title tracks, numbered I, II and III, a total of 40 minutes of free improvisation credited to the full group. Whether they were all recorded as a single session or as three separate takes I'm not sure, but the Lontano tracks provide the deepest expression of this quartet's spacious sensibility, the shorter pieces that surround them highlighting the spare beauty of Stańko's writing and more sublime playing. Stańko reaches back to his first ECM appearance for a fresh take on Tale, and even further to his first appearance on LP, the muscular version of Komeda's Kattorna giving an upbeat contrast to sublime ballads like Song For Ania and Sweet Thing. A masterpiece of an album that keeps on giving with every listen.
As the noted in the radio host's intro, the late, great Tomasz Stańko would've been 80 this year. An ideal time for a tribute concert, then - and this one definintely delivers the goods, with the trio who worked with him for several years augmented by orchestra and special guests. Since the Polish trumpeter's death four years ago, we've been left with a truly great catalogue in European jazz, and the impression (I certainly get) that Stańko just kept getting better with age. His last few years are my favourite to return to over and over, and music from this period forms the core of the setlist, the elegaic melodies enhanced by the BBC Concert Orchestra in ways that serve the material well.
The first half begins with Yankiel's Lid and Street Of Crocodiles from Polin (links to other albums below), spotlighting young saxophonist Emma Rawicz. To fill the essential trumpet role, we then get Avishai Cohen for the rest of the evening, starting with a beautiful rendition of the Wisława title track. More guests are introduced by way of a duet interlude - guitarist Rob Luft, a recent addition to the ECM stable, backs singer Alice Zawadzki on a folk song arrangement of hers. Luft is then the featured player as we return to Stańko's music for Terminal 7, to lead in to the interval - and I've left this 20-minute section of the broadcast intact for a change, as the announcer features clips of an interview with Stańko recorded in 2008.
Tomasz Stańko's early association with Krzysztof Komeda, mentioned in the interval, is also reflected in the concert resuming with the Lullabye from Rosemary's Baby, sung by Zawadzki backed by the orchestra. Stańko's own music for film and theatre is also touched on, with A Farewell To Maria and Roberto Zucco - good to hear from a corner of the Stańko ouevre that remains lesser-known (not least because those obscure soundtracks could do with being reissued). Other than Celine, an arrangement of material from Suspended Night, the rest of the set returns to the Wisława album - Faces, April Story and then a brief rip through Assassins to close a superb concert. Avishai Cohen sounds fantastic throughout, given the not inconsiderable task of stepping into Stańko's shoes; the Marcin Wasilewski Trio a perfect link to the composer in life (and Wasilewski is always such an incredible pianist), and well-chosen guests and sympathetic arrangements all make this a fitting tribute. If you love Stańko's music even half as much as I do, don't miss this one.
Second album by Stańko's "Polish Quartet" of the 2000s, or, as the three younger musicians became known outside of Stańko's employ, the Marcin Wasilewski Trio. It was an inspired combination that produced three great albums of spacious exploration, both rooted in classic post-bop jazz and completely up to date, a forward-looking example of the modern ECM aesthetic.
The album's predecessor had no track titles at all - this one at least starts out with a named piece, the lovely opener Song For Sarah, before embarking on the Suspended Variations, just numbered I - X. The first of these lays out the template in fine mid-tempo form, highlighting each musician in turn, then journeys through sublime group telepathy in uptempo (like II, V, and VIII) and wispy, becalmed modes (III, IV, VII) and more to complete one of Stańko's most rightly celebrated late-period albums.
Active since the 80s as a high-profile session musician, French drummer Manu Katché had only released one other solo album prior to this beautifully relaxed ECM session. He was no freshman to the label, having played with Jan Garbarek throughout the 90s, and it's Garbarek who is the main instrumental voice here, in fine form. The rest of the lineup was Tomasz Stańko's "Polish Quartet" of the time - minus the drummer, of course.
The ten tracks here, all composed by Katché, only raise the temperature a few times - for the most part, Neighbourhood is a wonderful, laid-back immersion in pure group dynamics. When the album does start to groove, it's with a taut, understated funkiness that makes Katché's deft touch endlessly enjoyable, as on Number One, Lovely Walk, No Rush and the catchy Take Off And Land. The rest is pure heaven for a rainy afternoon and a beverage of choice.
As per last week's post, Tomasz Stańko's TWET lineup was mostly retained for his first appearance on ECM, with only Peter Warren switched out for Dave Holland. And it's the legendary bassist who sparks this album into life, with the propulsive riff that kicks off the aptly named First Song. Stańko and Szukalski are united on a catchy theme, before going off on some incendiary solos.
The more atmospheric Tale follows, giving Edward Vesala his first feature on his signature range of percussion. Then there's a Vesala composition, Num - it's a bit more spidery and exploratory as per the darker-hued material on TWET, but never fully loses sight of the great melodic theme that it sets out. The album's first side concludes with a brief duet between Stańko and Holland.
Side Two comprises three tracks, all composed by Stańko. The title track is the kind of solemn dirge that would become Stańko's stock in trade when he returned to ECM almost two decades later. Last Song is more free and firey again - but it's not the actual last song: that's the closing Nenaliina, another great atmospheric feature for Vesala to star in.
Dark and skronky free jazz from Eastern Europe at its most inspired. Tomasz Stańko assembled a great band here with American bassist Peter Warren, Finnish percussion wizard Edward Vesala and fellow Polish jazz avant-gardist Tomasz Szukalski on saxes and bass clarinet.
The first of two lengthy tracks, Dark Awakening features Warren either clunking ominously or bowing a deep drone, whilst Vesala adds several odd sounds (and even occasional vocals) to his unique drumming style, giving the horn players the perfectly bizarre backing to take flight against. The title track is in a similar vein; loads of space, especially for Szukalski to bounce off of Stańko, and Warren mostly sticking to an ominous upward plod like a jazz Geezer Butler.
There's lighter material on TWET too, with Mintuu Maria featuring Stańko at his sweetest and most melodic for this period, and the closing Night Peace featuring little bell sounds from Vesala. In between those is Man From North, another lengthy exploratory vehicle. All in all, one of the most satisfying albums of Stańko's early career. He'd land his first ECM date not long after with almost the same lineup - that's coming up next week.
POLIN (see links below) wasn't the first time that the late Tomasz Stańko had composed for the opening of a Polish museum. The 27 minutes of music on this release were written for the Warsaw Uprising Museum's opening in 2004, which marked the 60th anniversary of the wartime event in question.
Quite unlike the POLIN release, which was effectively a conventional jazz album in its own right, Freedom In August is a much more soundtrack-like work. Stańko's working group of the time are expanded with keyboards and percussion (Janusz Skowron and Apostolis Antymos, both of whom he'd worked with in the 80s) and backing from the Polish Symphony Orchestra.
This lush, widescreen sound can seem a little odd at first coming from someone like Stańko, but it works well in this context, and emphasises his melancholy forte as a composer. Of course, as he still stars on trumpet on every track, Freedom In August is also well worth a listen for any fans of Stańko's signature sound. He stretches out most on the plaintive, urgent Crash Song, and graces every other track with the charcoal streaks familiar to his conventional records. A really beautiful mini-album that deservies recognition in the much-missed Stańko's catalogue.
After three fleeting appearances on ECM in the two decades prior, only one of them as leader, Tomasz Stańko stepped into Oslo's Rainbow Studio in the spring of 1994 to make the label his primary home for the rest of his life. One wonders if Manfred Eicher listened to Bosonossa and heard a career renaissance in the making that he simply had to have on his roster - not least because the trumpeter's sense of space was just crying out for the sympathetic ear of Jan-Erik Kongshaug.
The Bosonossa quartet was imported intact, with Tony Oxley's eerie percussion introducing Monastery In The Dark like echoing footsteps on ancient stone floors. The inspiration for this album was Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s 1961 film Matka Joanna od Aniołów (Mother Joan of the angels), for which much of this unsettling, spacious music could've made a good soundtrack. Stańko, Stenson and Jormin all work together brilliantly, but the star turn in the quartet definitely belongs to Oxley here, right through to the closing percussion solo where the nunnery's malevolent spirits are finally exorcised.
YEEESSSS finally got hold of a copy of this! Majorly out of print (seeming to have disappeared from the GOWI label's catalogue on their own website), Bosonossa is well worth chasing down. Stańko's quartet with which he'd return to ECM the following year (on Matka Joanna - will post sometime) appear here fully-formed, and sound fantastic on this masterpiece of an album.
Six tracks in just shy of an hour means that everyone gets a chance to stretch out and showcase their considerable talents alongside Stańko. Drummer Tony Oxley is particularly adept at sketching the atmospherics - I remember one reviewer of Matka Joanna likening him to 'a ghost dragging its chains around', and the same is true in places here. ECM familiars Bobo Stenson and Anders Jormin contribute some stunning pianism and thick, meaty bass respectively, brilliantly rendered in a production job by Stańko himself.
As for the (sadly now late) trumpeter, he's on top form throughout, spitting out firecrackers of sound one moment then languidly breathing out the residual smoke trails the next. His chosen material for Bosonossa is inspired as always - his 80s staple Sunia gets its most respectful and drawn-out treatment on record, and three of the other tracks he was rightly proud enough of to recast them in the initial phase of his ECM homecoming. Fans of Matka Joanna and Leosia will therefore enjoy both a bit of familiarity, and also the sheer brilliance of these tracks in their original outings. But to be honest, anyone who likes Stańko, or just great quartet jazz, is in for a treat here of the highest order.
Another post in honour of the sadly departed trumpet legend from Rzeszów, with one of his most satisfyingly accessible albums. Dark Eyes was recorded in the South of France in early 2009 with a fresh group composed of Danes and Finns, most notably guitarist Jakob Bro. Bro, then 31, turned in one of his earliest ECM appearances here, and has more recently established himself as a great bandleader on the label. On Dark Eyes he's an ideal, shadowy foil to Stańko right from the first track.
Fans of latter-day Stańko will know what to expect here - lots of wonderfully languid, slow-burning melancholy, reaching its most exploratory on Samba Nova. That's one of only two tracks on Dark Eyes to hover around the 10-minute mark though, with most settling for around six, and the lovely late interlude May Sun (sans Stańko) barely three. So Dark Eyes is certainly a bit of a pull-back from the gargantuan moodpieces of its predecessor Lontano, and it's also an album that can cook, with Terminal 7 positively breezy by ECM Stańko standards. What it does have in common with Lontano is another look back to Stańko's formative patron, the great Krzysztof Komeda; two in fact this time, in gorgeous renditions of Dirge For Europe and the closing Etuida Baletowa No.3.
A sad farewell to TomaszStańko, following his passing from cancer at the weekend. Following the release of December Avenue a year ago, I remember wondering if the septugenarian trumpeter might have another album, or more, in him; sadly now it's a bookend to an amazing 50+ year career. And IMHO, the absolute highlight of that career was the 100 minutes of music recorded by Stańko and his newly-formed New York Quartet in the summer of 2012, and released the following February.
The 'Wisława' of the album title was Szymborska (1923-2012), the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet who Stańko had collaborated with in 2009, with a limited edition release of the concert appearing in 2012, in which he played solo responses to her poems (from the short excerpt I've heard). Some of the same poem titles appear here - Tutaj, Mikrokosmos, Metafizyka, Assassins - now recast as quartet pieces in which Stańko swapped out his long-standing Polish backing group for pianist David Virelles, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Gerald Cleaver.
The results were nothing short of magical, and well worthy of the extended running time which is bookended by takes of a 13-minute requiem for Wisława herself. This title piece unfolds its melody at a languid, dignified pace (like much of the album) before reaching the gorgeous five-note theme that Virelles has hinted at in the intro. Throughout the slower-paced material, like the title track, Dernier Cri and April Story, the spot-on production lets every breath from Stańko fill out the ambient atmosphere, and the upbeat tracks - Assassins, Faces, A Shaggy Vandal - show how much fire there was in this band. Żegnaj Tomasz, dziękuję.
Wisława, the double-album released by Tomasz Stańko's New York Quartet in February 2013, was justly lauded as a masterpiece, and will definitely be featured here at some point. By contrast, just under two years later, this album completely flew under the radar - I think I only found out about Polin when it was added to discogs, and I never read a review anywhere. Perhaps it was better known in Poland and around Europe, but for the most part, I suppose not having the clout of ECM behind it meant that this album wasn't internationally promoted. Which is a shame, because I reckon it's wonderful. So let's give it some love.
POLIN, the museum of the History of Polish Jews, was constructed on the site of the old Warsaw Ghetto from 2007-2012, and its main exhibition opened in October 2014. At that time, the curators invited Stańko to write and perform a suite of music for the opening, which he did (see video below), recording it in the same month. Retaining only pianist David Virelles from the NY Quartet, Stańko assembled another band of Americans with bassist Dezron Douglas, drummer Kush Abadey, and 'Trane Jr on sax. The museum released the album themselves shortly afterwards, without a regular record label.
And for that, it's an album that sounds superb - come to it blind and you could conceivably be listening to a regular ECM production. It's an inspired band that Stańko's assembled here, with Virelles' lightness of touch carrying over perfectly from Wisława and the new rhythm section laying down a more swinging foundation right from opener Gela. Ravi Coltrane is a great foil to Stańko here - it's nice to just hear the trumpeter play with another horn, after so many years of (admittedly gorgeous) quartet releases.
When the tempo picks up, as on Yankiel's Lid and the title track, Coltrane really starts to cook on his solos, with Stańko picking up the energy and sounding in top form himself. But don't miss the loveliest ballad on this brief set, which is saved for the end. The Street Of Crocodiles has one of those classic little understated Stańko melodies, and was also beautifully recast on his return to ECM last year (on December Avenue, where Yankiel's Lid was also re-recorded with a freshly rejigged NY Quartet). Sure, ECM Stańko is great, but don't miss out on Polin.
Opening night concert at POLIN, Oct. 2014 - video should start at 1h3m for Stańko's set
The 70s fusion-era Stańko Quintet recorded live in Iserlohn, Germany in May 1972. Other than a change of bassist, this is the group that would go on to record Purple Sun the following year. The music here is therefore in a similar trumpet-violin-flute-sax vein, if perhaps a bit more laid back and exploratory across these two side-long tracks.
AEOIOE/Heban settles into a nice shuffling groove for most of its duration, with Zbigniew Seifert's violin to the fore for much of it. Things become much more free towards the end - presumably the 'Heban' part, for which Seifert is credited as the writer. Piece For Diana/Wood's Music Serie starts off quite free and mellow too, with some extremely odd noises being coaxed from the reeds. There's some nice flute, but again the star soloist seems to be Seifert for much of the track. Not that I'm complaining - Seifert (1946-1979) was a wonderful musician, and I definitely need to give his solo work more of a listen sometime soon.
Perhaps it's a bit odd for a Stańko Quintet album to have the band leader taking a back seat so much, but to be honest I quite like how Stańko doesn't dominate proceedings here, but leaves room for everyone. He does ignite properly about halfway through the second track, but even then it's as a contributor to a free-for-all rather than a full spotlight. If you're wanting to listen to Stańko for his trumpet playing then, this is maybe not the ideal album to seek it out - but if you're after some great Eastern-European jazz fusion being played by an open, organic-sounding group, then this is a jazzmessage well worth receiving.
Stańko's mid-80s fusion ensemble in action at the 1987 Montreux Jazz Festival. Possibly not the full performance, unless they did only appear for 35 minutes, but enough to get a flavour of their nicely odd trumpet-bass-synth-synth sound. Yep, there's no drummer here, with the rhythmic drive being provided by Witold Szcurek's bass slapping and Tadeus Sudnik's arsenal of tweaked synths and 'self-made electronics'.
I'll readily admit that my initial listen to this recording just elicited a response of 'arrrgh 80s cheese', and I even referred to it in a previous Stańko writeup as 'hilarious', but scratch below the surface sound (the twanging bass, and a very much of-its-time DX7) and repeated listens throw up the little idiosyncrasies that keep me coming back to Freelectronic In Montreux.
Alternate cover
Most of this is down to Sudnik, whose little whooshes and burbles take the group's sound into a weirder dimension than upbeat opener Lady Go would otherwise suggest. The atmospherics of Asmodeus and Too Pee are more interesting still, suggesting a definite Vangelis presence in Sudnik's record collection. Stańko himself is on fine firey form on the uptempo numbers (and on the loose soundscape of Too Pee), and coolly melancholic elsewhere, looking forwards to his mature ECM years. The MC at the end appears to say "rebel of Polish jazz - Tomasz Stańko", and on this evidence he very much still merited that crown in the 80s.
Another alt cover - had they employed the guy who drew for Ozric Tentacles or something??
Triptykon made me dig this out - primarily to listen to more Arild Andersen in a trio format, where he turns in another rock solid performance, this time underpinning Tomasz Stańko. The trumpeter was just emerging from an incredibly strange fusion era in the 80s (someday I'll post Freelectronic In Montreux, it's hilarious) and got right back to basics with this sublime trio recording. Well, there's just three instruments credited; not sure what's going on in the two takes of Andersen's composition If You Look Enough, whether it's a vestigial synth or just delay effects on the bass or suchlike.
Bluish, "named after the place in your brain that is responsible for your addictions" (Stańko, in a 2010 autobiography) would've been a perfect ECM release - drummer Jon Christensen rounds out the trio. In 1991 however, Stańko was still three years away from long-term commitment to the Eicher stable, so Bluish came out on a Polish label; luckily, it's still fairly easy to get hold of on CD.
Stańko would eventually hit ECM on an deeply melancholy, grey-streaked note that saturated his work for the rest of the 90s. On Bluish, there's only hints toward this, notably on Third Heavy Ballad. For the most part, this a light, airy album that swings, takes odd little diversions that could only be Stańko (notwithstanding the Andersen-composed bookends), and generally revels in its tight-but-loose atmosphere of mature free jazz at its most understated and effective.
As mentioned previously, Tomasz Stańko is my favourite jazz trumpeter and simply one of my favourite musicians of all time. From being at the vanguard of 60s Polish jazz with the tragically short-lived Krystof Komeda (I may post Astigmatic at some point) and linking up with kindred spirits like Edward Vesala in the mid 70s, to his mature, elegaic post-millenium output (DO NOT MISS Wisława!), the constant is always a singular player (and team player) and spare, lean writer.
Anyhow, for my first Stańko post I've gone for an earlier fusion era that only lasted for a couple of albums in the early 70s, but could easily hold its own with what was going on elsewhere in Europe or in the US. Purple Sun was in fact recorded in Munich in March 1973, but retained a heavyweight Polish lineup (save for a top-notch Swiss bassist), of particular note being the legendary violinist Zbigniew Seifert who gives proceedings a slight Mahavishnu flavour in places. Overall, though, this album is just a fantastic slice of post-Bitches Brew groove with the unique slant of being rooted in Eastern European free jazz.
Vesala's follow-up to Nan Madol might only have one lengthy (14 minute) track this time, with all its other tracks being in the 6-7 minute ballpark, but Satu is no less bracing or engrossing an album. This one is also a bit harder-edged than its predecessor, cranking up the volume courtesy of ECM stalwart Terje Rypdal, whose lightning streaks of Fender Strat make Star Flight particularly memorable. My personal favourite jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stanko is on fine form as well, building on the chemistry he'd already worked up with Vesala on Stanko's albums Balladyna and Twet, which are both essential. Will post some Stanko in a wee while.
