Polish Jazz vol.22 TOMASZ STANKO QUINTET Music for K
Price: $19.89
Brief Description
Detailed Description
Specifications
Stanko's 1970 masterpiece pays homage to the memory of deceased friend and mentor - Krzysztof Komeda.
Tracks:
1. The ambusher (Czatownik) 05'40
2. Infinitely small (Nieskonczenie maly) 04'05
3. Cry 08'40
4. Music for K 16'20
5. Theme / The ambusher (Temat / Czatownik) 0'45
Tomasz Stanko -trumpet
Zbigniew Seifert - alto saxophone
Janusz Muniak - tenor saxophone
Bronislaw Suchanek - bass
Janusz Stefanski - drums, percussion
Recorded:
January 1970, at the Warsaw Philharmonics
Hall, Warsaw, Poland
About:
Back in 1970, when this disc was recorded, Tomasz
Stanko, by now an internationally established and admired jazz personality, was
already known as one of the very few convincing free-jazzmen. In his bold
endeavours he was lucky to enjoy some understanding and sensitive partners.
Earlier, in the sixties Stanko's experiences were both as a sideman and a
leader. He cooperated with such greats as Krzysztof Komeda, Wlodzimierz Nahorny,
Zbigniew Namyslowski, Andrzej Trzaskowski, Don Cherry and Albert Mangelsdorff,
but his favourite partners were Janusz Muniak, Janusz Stefanski, Zbig Seifert
and - a bit later - Bronislaw Suchanek. Tomasz Stanko Quintet flourished without
personal changes for five years (1969-1973), scoring a big success during 1970
Jazz Jamboree.
Around that time, a year after untimely death of
Krzysztof Komeda (1939-1969), the quintet recorded four pieces by Stanko, naming
the LP after the main composition: Music for K", thus paying homage to the
memory of deceased friend and expressing his emotional attitude toward his
premature death. However, Stanko didn't attempt to relate here to Komeda's sound
or style and remains very much himself presenting his peculiar, personal way of
shaping music, remote, on the surface only, from the structural clarity. His
predilection toward spontaneous development of music, based on very few
indispensable determinants, surprisingly dovetails here with the emotional
content of such deeply felt numbers like "Cry" and "Music for K". It seems
obvious that Stanko's free stems rather from Coltrane's last work and his shades
of expression are rich and many.
"The Ambusher" is charged with mystery and suppressed
feelings/ It is bracketed by the nervous, aggressive bop phrase, that serves
also later as a closing sequence at the end of this disc. Stanko's soloing
(there are even lyrical passages in the "Infinitely Small"), as well as the
solos by Muniak and Seifert and their twin, simultaneous blazes are ingeniously
supported by Suchanek and Stefanski. Their playing supplies impetus ans mystery,
abandon and motion, making various moods meaningful. In the middle between them
and Stanko's trumpet both saxophones prowl, similar in sound and attack. Their
dissonant, double-concord pulsation appear twice in "Cry"-kind of obsessive,
frozen riff under the fiery trumpet lamentations. Zbig Seifert (1946-1979) who
was soon to switch back to the violin, his previous instrument from the
conservatory years, plays here alto side by side with more experienced partners,
Muniak and Stanko. Note their joint sequence in "Cry", just before the saxophone
wailing calms down leading to a dirge - chorale which concludes this number.
The last and more extended piece "Music
for K" is very diversified in moods and tempi. The brooding , painful passages
intertwine with a wailing trumpet exhortations. Then Suchanek plays a clear
sounding solo, pregnant with wonderful ideas, after, interrupted by calmer
chant-like passages. Stefanski's drums supporting trumpet cone gradually to the
fore, to tell us of things inevitable. Once again, from the piercing cries a
song of resentment takes off to the sky and ends abruptly, and then from the
bottom of silence an uproar of a four notes, repeated and growing in volume
motif starts and stops on the note B. Silence again. The sound of bass bring
back the initial phrase from "The Ambusher" to end this music definitely.
