Tomasz Stanko RIP....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just breaking...

"Polish avant-garde jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stanko dies at 76
Reuters Staff
WARSAW (Reuters) - Tomasz Stanko, Polish trumpeter, composer and prominent figure in avant-garde and free jazz for decades, died on Sunday at the age of 76, the Polish Jazz Association said."

RIP.

[Lat-Literal]

Just breaking...

"Polish avant-garde jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stanko dies at 76
Reuters Staff
WARSAW (Reuters) - Tomasz Stanko, Polish trumpeter, composer and prominent figure in avant-garde and free jazz for decades, died on Sunday at the age of 76, the Polish Jazz Association said."

RIP.

Sad news.

Thought he was younger.

I have the fine "Suspended Night" in my collection:

https://www.allmusic.com/album/suspended-night-mw0000332426

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

He's on (and I probably prefer him in this pre ECM period) quite a few of the very great series of "Polish Jazz" LP/CD reissues. There is some remarkable material and performances there that is certainly the equal or more of anything coming from Britain in the same late 60s /early 70s period.

"Similarly to his Mentor, Krzysztof Komeda, Stanko always tried to work with musicians from other countries, even when the bureaucracy of the Socialist regime made it quite difficult. Like Komeda before him, he worked with musicians from the neighbor Scandinavian countries, finding a close friend and partner in the free-spirited Finnish legendary drummer Edward Vesala. Young Polish saxophonist Tomasz Szukalski was given the position previously held by such giant musicians as Zbigniew Namyslowski and Michal Urbaniak, which testifies to Stanko's high confidence in him. The quartet was completed by the great American bassist Peter Warren, who lived at the time in Europe and participated actively in the incredible European Jazz scene of that period. "

BN.

[Old Grumpy]

Very sad to hear that. A fine musician. I did like his ECM period, and have several CDs to prove it. I have seen him live a couple of times, both at Gateshead International Jazz Festival: very atmospheric and wearing his trademark headgear - Mrs OG, however, less impressed, suggested he was the spitting image of Andy Capp!

RIP Tomasz, and thanks for making this world a better place.



OG

[Beef Oven!]

Very sad news. A great musician. I have 4/5 of his CDs and like them very much. For some reason I thought he was younger than 76. RIP

[Serial_Apologist]

Very sad news. A great musician. I have 4/5 of his CDs and like them very much. For some reason I thought he was younger than 76. RIP

He would have only been in his mid-20s when he was one of the two main brave pioneers of free jazz behind the Iron Curtain, the other being Polish fellow-countryman Krystof Komeda. But I only heard his amazing trumpet playing for the first time in a b/c of Graham Collier's Hoarded Dreams at the 1983 Bracknell Festival, of which I subsequently got the CD.

[Ian Thumwood]

Stanko was one of the most original voices in European jazz and first came across him on one of Alyn's radio documentaries about Polish jazz back in the early 1990's when I was coming back from working in a project in Poole. I went through a spell of being a big fan of his playing but lost track of his work after the "Suspended Night" group which was ok, but not as great as his earlier ECM projects especially the Komeda tribute and "Matka Joanna." I saw the former group in Southampton and was a little under-whelmed but I think this often happens with ECM because it is so difficult to recreate the unique studio production in a live situation. I have not heard the more recent American band. Stanko's more "traditional" outside approach probably serve to make him one of ECM's more authentic jazz artists and maybe the one artist more than any other who seemed to projected the feeling of Miles' "Kind of Blue" well beyond Modal jazz. Sometimes ECM's quest for introspection is to the detriment of the music but because you can sense a heritage that originates from the classic Miles album, I feel that Stanko's work his frequently more compelling than a lot of his stable mates. I wouldn't swap anything by him for the newer Mathias Eick stuff, for example. There is a depth in his ECM work which I think is lacking with a lot of the newer names.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

France TV/Culturebox obit (translated)...


"A virtuoso trumpeter and forerunner of free jazz in Europe in the 1970s, Poland's Tomasz Stanko died Sunday at the age of 76, the Polish public radio announced, citing the artist's daughter. From the late 1950s, he had traveled the scenes, first in Poland and then around the world, in search of new musical inspirations and languages.

Master in the art of ballad, this trumpet player had developed an aesthetic between bebop tradition, free and improvised contemporary music. His performances alongside other giants of the world jazz, and his forty records, especially for the German label ECM which he was one of the pillars, have earned him many awards and awards both in the United States and Europe . He was the first winner of the European Jazz Prize of the Austrian Music Office in 2002. In 2013, the French Academy of Jazz awarded him the Prix du Musicien Européen.

"Everything inspires me," he said in an interview with AFP, a dozen years ago. "The world offers us incredible quantities of geniuses, in every corner of the globe, there have always been genius artists, and in our age of communication and information we can finally get to know them," he said.

A native of Rzeszow, he was part of a generation of Polish jazzmen who became enthusiastic about the new musical language in the 1960s, thanks in particular to the "Voice of America" and the first jazz records that had crossed the Rideau. "For me, it all started with modern jazz: Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Chet Baker," said Stanko. It was while listening to them that he exchanged the classical piano and violin for the jazz trumpet. "At the time, I was immersed in existentialism, the new wave of French cinema and Italian neo-realism: painting, books by Faulkner and Joyce, bohemian Parisian ... Everything inspired me "he remembered.

"Meetings with people are very important," he said, as was the venue of the concert: be it in the sumptuous silence of the Taj Mahal Indian mausoleum or in a room taken by the orange revolutionary fever of Ukraine."

- Culturebox (with AFP)

BN.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

October 2008 R3. (Available as an abbreviated podcast)

Tomasz Stanko
Jazz Library

Alyn Shipton is joined by Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko to help select the finest examples of his recorded work that should be in any jazz collection.

One of the most celebrated jazz musicians in Europe, Stanko looks back on his collaborations with Krzysztof Komeda and Edward Vesala, and discusses the albums he has made under his own name, including Litania and Leosia.

[Serial_Apologist]

October 2008 R3. (Available as an abbreviated podcast)

Tomasz Stanko
Jazz Library

Alyn Shipton is joined by Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko to help select the finest examples of his recorded work that should be in any jazz collection.

One of the most celebrated jazz musicians in Europe, Stanko looks back on his collaborations with Krzysztof Komeda and Edward Vesala, and discusses the albums he has made under his own name, including Litania and Leosia.

Here's that link (you'll need Flash Player):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/p00g3qzw

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I dug out "Almost Green" (1979) on Leo. That is a great record with shades of Ornette and Cherry's more ballad lines but taking it elsewhere.

Just occurred to me that "Almost Green" could be a nod to Kind of Blue.

[Alyn_Shipton]

We are repeating his concert from last year's EFG London Jazz festival as a tribute in Jazz Now on Monday next https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bd7z63

[Old Grumpy]

We are repeating his concert from last year's EFG London Jazz festival as a tribute in Jazz Now on Monday next https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bd7z63

[Serial_Apologist]

We are repeating his concert from last year's EFG London Jazz festival as a tribute in Jazz Now on Monday next https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bd7z63

Great. I wonder why that link could not have enabled play, or even mentioned timings, as would be known, as usual in re-broadcasts... ho hum.