Tomasz Stanko’s smouldering Slavic soul music and grainy-toned trumpet finds a new context on “Dark Eyes”. Like his hero Miles Davis, the Polish jazz master also has an impressive record as talent scout and mentor, and his latest ensemble pools young players from the North of Europe. Tomasz has had strong connections to Finland in particular since the early 1970s when he was part of Edward Vesala’s creative circle. Now he welcomes two prodigiously gifted Finns into his group, pianist Alexi Tuomarila and drummer Olavi Louhivuori, both expressive and imaginative players. On “Dark Eyes”, Jakob Bro, the young guitarist heard on ECM on Paul Motian’s “Garden of Eden” is cast most often in the role of subtle colourist, while fellow Dane Anders Christensen, on electric bass throughout, provides the band’s throbbing pulse. The programme features new Stanko compositions, including “The Dark Eyes of Martha Hirsch”, inspired by an Oskar Kokoschka canvas, plus a new version of “Last Song” from Tomasz ECM debut “Balladyna”, as well as “Dirge for Europe” and “Etiuda baletowa nr. 3” from the pen of Krzysztof Komeda.
Dark Eyes
Tomasz Stanko Quintet
- 1So Nice
05:52 - 2Terminal 7
05:30 - 3The Dark Eyes Of Martha Hirsch
10:03 - 4Grand Central
06:25 - 5Amsterdam Avenue
06:11 - 6Samba Nova
09:23 - 7Dirge For Europe
05:29 - 8May Sun
02:47 - 9Last Song
03:58 - 10Etiuda Baletowa No. 3
05:49
The new album …is unique in Stanko’s discography in that it features the key presence of an electric guitar introducing mind-expanding new potential to the cinematic scope of Stanko’s sound. The view from the green hill, Stanko’s artistic muse, now stretches for miles.
Stephen Graham, Jazzwise
Polish trumpeter Stanko’s new Finnish and Nordic quintet, with Jacob Bro on guitar, can sound either plangently acoustic or modestly electric. While this is a relatively low-key Stanko set, it’s still full of his customary quiet intensity, both in his own excellent playing and that of the band. Unusually for any album, Dark Eyes gets better the longer it goes on.
Phil Johnson, Independent on Sunday
The trumpeter once again makes an album in which every note – and the spaces around them – have impact. The twilight feel recalls his Miles Davis influence, but these ethereal paintings in sound are all his own. … One of the great European jazz albums of the year.
John Bungey, The Times
Neu ist an Stankos Musik … nichts (in der Grundierung seines Tons, der lapidaren Konzentration auf das Wesentliche). Oder alles. Im Detail ist Dark Eyes einmalig wie all die sparsam gesetzten Werke Stankos zuvor. Nach drei CDs mit dem Trio des Pianisten Marcin Wasilewski ist dies die erste mit einer neuen Formation: mit dem finnischen Pianisten Alexi Tuomarila, dem dänischen Gitarristen Jakob Bro, dem Bassisten Anders Christensen und dem Drummer Olavi Louhivuori. Die Truppe bringt es zusammengezählt etwa auf Stankos Jahre, aber sie klingt, als wäre sie seit Jahrzehnten mit dem großen alten Melancholiker unterwegs. Ein starkes Stück.
Peter Rüedi, Die Weltwoche
Wieder legt der Pole ein Album zum Niederknien vor. … Die Band legt ihm einen fein gewebten Teppich für seine grandiosen Trompetenexerzitien, die immer wieder ohne Vergleich sind, weil Stanko seinen höchst lebendigen Ton in gut vier Jahrzehnten zum eindringlichen Unikat individualisierte. In A Polish Way: Tiefemotional, melancholisch, spröde, gelegentlich mit diesem spitzen Cry und immer ganz nah beim Kern der Dinge, so ist er längst ein Klassiker geworden.
Ulrich Steinmetzger, Leipziger Volkszeitung
With Stanko taking less solo space than might be expected, his talented colleagues make their mark, particularly Tuomarila and the impressive Louhivouri. But Stanko’s is the primary voice in a band moulded to his liking. Throughout … he does more with less than most achieve in a lifetime. That unique tone and simplicity of manner say it all for Stanko.
Ray Comiskey, The Irish Times
Stanko likes to draw his inspirations from various artistic corners. And that is good to know. But one can just listen to this storyteller and imagine his or her own fantasy, draw from this music what one would like that relates to their own life or lives. It is a continuing marvel to realize how this veteran of the European jazz scene keeps coming up with new players to help him realize his evocative and truly different musical visions, visions that combine the freewheeling jazz aesthetic with his more composerly, mysterious elements of composition.
John Ephland, DownBeat
Tomasz Stanko’s smouldering improvisations and grainy-toned trumpet find a new context on “Dark Eyes”. Like Miles Davis (a major influence) before him, the Polish jazz master also has an impressive record as talent scout and mentor, and his latest ensemble pools young players from the North of Europe. Tomasz has had strong connections to Finland in particular since the early 1970s when he was part of Edward Vesala’s creative circle. Now he welcomes two prodigiously gifted Finns into his group, pianist Alexi Tuomarila and drummer Olavi Louhivuori, both expressive and imaginative players. On “Dark Eyes”, Jakob Bro, the young guitarist heard on ECM on Paul Motian’s “Garden of Eden” is cast most often in the role of subtle colourist, while fellow Dane Anders Christensen, on electric bass throughout, provides the band’s throbbing pulse.
If the band is ‘Nordic’, Stanko’s inspirations are more broadly cosmopolitan. These days, he splits his time between homes in Warsaw and New York, and two of the titles on “Dark Eyes” – “Grand Central” and “Amsterdam Avenue” - are directly inspired by New York locales. A third, the album’s title track, takes its cue from an encounter with an Oskar Kokoschka canvas at the Neue Galerie on Fifth Avenue. Stanko was struck by the expressionist intensity of Kokoschka’s painting “Martha Hirsch (Dreaming Woman)” and the haunted, hollowed-eyed gaze of its subject, subsequently “translating”, as he says, the emotional impact of the work, its “dimension of feeling”, into sound. “Everything you experience gets into the music, 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. ”
Two pieces here – “Terminal 7” and “May Sun” – are compositions written originally to accompany drama by Swedish playwright Lars Norén in Warsaw performances: “In the studio, also in dialogue with Manfred (Eicher), we changed the direction of these tunes –getting more out of their atmospheric qualities”. “Samba Nova” is a memory of the quintet’s trip to Brazil last year. “I like the deeply mournful quality in some Brazilian music as well as the happy and celebratory things – this piece touches on both elements.”
With “Dirge for Europe” and “Etiuda baletowa nr. 3”, Stanko revisits music of his first employer, composer-pianist Krzysztof Komeda. Interestingly, however, these are not pieces that Tomasz played in his years on the road with Komeda. “‘Dirge for Europe’ - I think I played that only once with Komeda, at the (1967) jazz-and-poetry recording session. And the ballet study I never played at all. That was from 1962, a year before I joined his band. It was Alexi (Tuomarila) who focused on that piece and really wanted to play it. I always like to return to Komeda, though. His music is very close to my heart, to my feelings.”
Over several ECM sessions Tomasz has returned, too, to music first put down on his debut for the label, 1975’s “Balladyna”. This time it is the piece “Last Song” that is reinterpreted and, in the best jazz tradition, made new.
If the band is ‘Nordic’, Stanko’s inspirations are more broadly cosmopolitan. These days, he splits his time between homes in Warsaw and New York, and two of the titles on “Dark Eyes” – “Grand Central” and “Amsterdam Avenue” - are directly inspired by New York locales. A third, the album’s title track, takes its cue from an encounter with an Oskar Kokoschka canvas at the Neue Galerie on Fifth Avenue. Stanko was struck by the expressionist intensity of Kokoschka’s painting “Martha Hirsch (Dreaming Woman)” and the haunted, hollowed-eyed gaze of its subject, subsequently “translating”, as he says, the emotional impact of the work, its “dimension of feeling”, into sound. “Everything you experience gets into the music, 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. ”
Two pieces here – “Terminal 7” and “May Sun” – are compositions written originally to accompany drama by Swedish playwright Lars Norén in Warsaw performances: “In the studio, also in dialogue with Manfred (Eicher), we changed the direction of these tunes –getting more out of their atmospheric qualities”. “Samba Nova” is a memory of the quintet’s trip to Brazil last year. “I like the deeply mournful quality in some Brazilian music as well as the happy and celebratory things – this piece touches on both elements.”
With “Dirge for Europe” and “Etiuda baletowa nr. 3”, Stanko revisits music of his first employer, composer-pianist Krzysztof Komeda. Interestingly, however, these are not pieces that Tomasz played in his years on the road with Komeda. “‘Dirge for Europe’ - I think I played that only once with Komeda, at the (1967) jazz-and-poetry recording session. And the ballet study I never played at all. That was from 1962, a year before I joined his band. It was Alexi (Tuomarila) who focused on that piece and really wanted to play it. I always like to return to Komeda, though. His music is very close to my heart, to my feelings.”
Over several ECM sessions Tomasz has returned, too, to music first put down on his debut for the label, 1975’s “Balladyna”. This time it is the piece “Last Song” that is reinterpreted and, in the best jazz tradition, made new.
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