Tomasz Stanko R.I.P.

[Rooster_Ties]

Stanko, along with Kenny Wheeler (who I always felt was a kindred spirit), did a great deal to open my ears up a bit 15-20 years ago.

He will be missed.

https://www.discogs.com/Tomasz-Sta%C5%84ko-Bosonossa-And-Other-Ballads/release/2869225

One of my favorites, from 1993 -- and despite the "and other ballads" nomenclature, I see this as being more of a simmering caldron of mid-tempo excitement -- that occasionally threatens to boil over, but never quite does (and I mean that in the very best way). 

 

Edited July 30, 2018 by Rooster_Ties

[clifford_thornton]

Sad news! RIP.

[Scott Dolan]

10 hours ago, king ubu said:

He was a great musician ... love his existentialist trumpet stylings. Played "Leosia" last night in memory.

This is the exact album I listened to yesterday. A rather uneven affair, but the somber mood of it seemed fitting. 

Come to find out he died of lung cancer. 

OH! And greetings, Professor Bivins! Long time, no see. 

Edited July 30, 2018 by Scott Dolan

[sidewinder]

Recall that I did see him once with his quartet in the mid 2000s. I think the venue was Cheltenham.

[mjazzg]

45 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Stanko, along with Kenny Wheeler (who I always felt was a kindred spirit), did a great deal to open my ears up a bit 15-20 years ago.

He will be missed.

https://www.discogs.com/Tomasz-Sta%C5%84ko-Bosonossa-And-Other-Ballads/release/2869225

One of my favorites, from 1993 -- and despite the "and other ballads" nomenclature, I see this as being more of a simmering caldron of mid-tempo excitement -- that occasionally threatens to boil over, but never quite does (and I mean that in the very best way). 

 

Yeah, that's a very good one

[GA Russell]

TOMASZ STANKO (JULY 11, 1942 – JULY 29, 2018)

 

The great Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko has died, aged 76. An innovative force in the music, with an immediately identifiable sound - integrating, by his own description, “Slavic melancholy and the blues” - Stanko first came to broader attention in the early 1960s with the groups of composer-pianist Krzysztof Komeda, playing on the soundtracks of Polanski’s films and contributing to the Komeda album Astigmatic, one of the defining recordings of new European jazz. The trumpeter would reassess this period of his life on the widely-acclaimed Litania in 1997.

Tomasz made his ECM debut in 1975 with the great Balladyna album featuring Tomasz Szukalski on tenor sax, Dave Holland on bass and Edward Vesala on drums. Stanko and the Finnish drummer enjoyed a close artistic friendship, playing together in various configurations including Vesala’s large ensemble on Satu.

Like his early hero Miles Davis, Stanko was a discerning bandleader and each of his groups had its own distinct character. Matka Joanna and Leosia, with Bobo Stenson, Anders Jormin and Tony Oxley balanced lyricism and turbulent free play.

The band on From The Green Hill – with its unusual frontline featuring Stanko, John Surman, Dino Saluzzi and classical violinist Michelle Makarski - grew out of an experimental session at an ECM festival in Badenweiler.

Soul of Things introduced the world at large to the talents of Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Michal Miskiewicz, and on Suspended Night and Lontano, one could hear their improvisational capacities opening up under Stanko’s guidance. Wasilewski and co always hailed Tomasz as their mentor, a claim he would modestly wave away: “No, no – I’ve learned just as much from them.”

Dark Eyes pooled the talents of young improvisers from the North, with two Danes (Jakob Bro and Anders Christensen) and two Finns (Alexi Tuomarila and Olavi Louhivuori) in a program referencing music originally written to accompany plays of Swedish writer Lars Norén, as well as a title track inspired by an Oskar Kokoschka painting. “Everything you experience gets into the music,” Tomasz said, “but I’ve always been touched as much by art as by anything else in life. Fiction, poetry, film, the theatre. The visual arts especially. The way a painter uses paint, or the way he approaches form, distorting it to abstraction, or painting naturalistically or poetically ... these aspects can be paralleled in my musical language, in the way I shape a melody line.”

By the early 2000s, Stanko was splitting his time between New York and Warsaw, subsequently founding a New York Quartet, strikingly free of native New Yorkers, for the album Wisława with Cuban born pianist David Virelles, Detroit drummer Gerald Cleaver, and Californian bassist Thomas Morgan, replaced on December Avenue by Reuben Rogers from the Virgin Islands.

In all of his groups Tomasz encouraged freedom of expression and he derived great pleasure from the improvisational contributions of his musicians. Before becoming ill earlier this year he was looking forward to touring in a new quintet with fellow trumpeter Enrico Rava, pianist Giovanni Guidi and the New York Quartet rhythm team of Reuben Rogers and Gerald Cleaver. Friends since 1965, Stanko and Rava had touched on almost all aspects of modern jazz in the course of their long careers – from the freest free playing (both had worked with Cecil Taylor and with Globe Unity) to the tenderest Chet Baker and Miles Davis - inspired balladry – and in concert were developing a broad program to reflect all of this.

 

Manfred Eicher selected a sequence of Tomasz Stanko’s music as a remembrance – listen here:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOJ4KJz97xo&feature=youtu.be

 

NPR’s tribute is here:

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/30/633942859/tomasz-stanko-a-trumpeter-whose-music-spoke-to-freedom-has-died

 

 

[Patrick]

RIP Tomasz. My point of entry was Soul of Things and Suspended Night. Have all of the ECM's except for the most recent December Avenue, and some of the earlier recordings. The first NY quartet recording Wislawa is a favorite. Saw the Soul of Things group perform once at Blues Alley and naively hoped that they would be a regular on the BA schedule (unfortunately, not so). Had hoped that the New York Quartet would travel south to DC. Was intrigued by the possible collaboration with Rava. Much to enjoy.

[mjazzg]

Didn't know about that band with Rava.Two favourite trumpeters together would've been something else

[optatio]

R.I.P.

[soulpope]

5 hours ago, optatio said:

R.I.P.

Great cover photography ....

[Balladeer]

Free spirit, great voice of jazz - RIP Tomasz Stanko

[imeanyou]

Kenny Wheeler, Tomasz Stanko, Enrico Rava -ECM is the home to a lot of my favourite contemporary trumpet players. Sad to hear of his passing, I have the bulk of his ECM output and was looking forward to more from him. Thank you for some great music, Tomasz. 

[king ubu]

('xept that Rava made most of his finest albums elsewhere ... and that ECM for Stanko and Wheeler is only half the story  - but yeah, all three made wonderful - Stanko and Wheeler some outstanding - albums for the label)