Customer Reviews

Soul of Things

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Thomasz Stanko, veteran Polish jazz trumpter, has made a truly remarkable album with Soul of things. Spiritually, it resonates with that equally stunning work by Peter Epstein, The Invisible, though the two sound little alike. It's what's at the heart of each disc, an attempt to evoke things beyond our senses, that makes them akin.

Whereas Epstein goes the mystery route (and very effectively, I might add), Stanko goes for the elagiac. Ravishingly beautiful open trumpet sound is the order of the day here. As I mention elsewhere, when the ECM thing works, it often works wonders, as it does here. I can't recall a more sheerly beautiful jazz recording.

If you're not on to Stanko, this a great place to start. If you're already hip to him, you'll certainly want to add this to your collection.

Tomasz Stanko is sometimes called the "Polish Miles Davis" & this album demonstrates that he's got a deeper understanding of Davis--especially the mid-1960s group with Hancock & Shorter--than any number of American neoconservative xeroxers of the style. There's not a note on this disc which doesn't owe a debt to Miles Davis, & there's not a note on it which sound anything less than identifiably Stanko's. One thing he shares with Davis is the ability to reinvent a tune for the occasion in subtle or broad ways. The tracks here are untitled, but they are often recognizable from earlier Stanko discs; for instance, "Die Weisheit von Isidore Ducasse" from _Bosonossa_ was slightly rededicated to the "Comte de Lautreamont" on _Leosia_ (the dedicatees are the some person, the 19th-c. author of the bizarre & sickeningly perverse novel _Les Chants de Maldoror_), & is here revisited as part VI. "Maldoror's War Song" from _Bosonossa_ is part X--a particularly striking change, from a passionate free-jazz reading to this disc's graceful swinger. -- Part I on this disc is revisited as Part IX, in a longer but less intense version; the opener is one of the most memorable things I've heard in a while, a gently drifting melody carried over slowly shifting pedal points, with all four players just barely keeping time & frequently dropping into silence.

This is Stanko's working band, three young musicians I've not encountered before. They have a profound empathy with him. This disc is mostly subtle & quiet (there are two or three hard-swinging tracks through), but it's always swinging, unlike Stanko's more freeish albums. It's unlikely this year will turn up a better new jazz release--it's an outstanding disc.

The Thelonious Monk's Jazz standard "'Round Midnight" has been covered by nearly every artist in Jazz and rightly so, it's a classically great song. If you can imagine a quartet with trumpet and piano, let's say Chet Baker & Bill Evans in the club not 'Round Midnight, but 'Round 3:00 AM, after everyone has left, playing a set of pretty laid back stuff, you have "Soul Of Things".

The CD is very well recorded, reminds me of the clarity and austerity of Fellow ECM artist Bobo Stenson. The songs, with unhelpful titles like "III", "X" etc, meander pleasantly like a late night jam session. Thoughtful music. Sometimes builds up to swing, more often slows to a quiet hypnotic pace. Emphasizes the inner voices of the instruments and the inner thoughts of the artists. Coolness that borders on freeze, in indigos, grays and blacks. Abstract. Melancholy. These Europeans show little anger or dissonance.

Listen late at night with a glass of wine. Recommended. It will grow on you with repeated listening. You'll find yourself coming back again and again.

I like it. do you?

If you are one of those audiophiles who enjoys listening to Miles Davis's Kind of Blue but does not have any other jazz trumpet CDs, here is a chance to double your collection and double your fun. Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko has made several recordings for ECM; Soul of Things, his latest release, is the most accessible and the most likely to have immediate--but lasting--appeal to both the casual jazz fan and the dedicated jazz fan with conservative taste.

On this outing, Stanko is supported by three fellow Poles, Marcin Wasilewski (piano), Slawomir Kurkiewicz (bass), and Michal Miskiewicz (drums). The music is all written by Stanko, and yes, it is all quite soulful. There are no virtuosic displays, no flashy solos, just four musicians listening to each other and playing to support each other and make the music grow. There is a timeless quality to this music, which is rooted in the past but still sounds fresh and new. Throw in the superb engineering of Jan Erik Kongshaug and you have a thoroughly engaging recording that should make a lot of jazz fans smile, be they casual or dedicated.

I've had this CD for several years - along with Suspended Night and Lontano (and Leosia...yes, pretty much all of Stanko's music that I can find). It has taken awhile for Soul of Things to reveal all of its treasures to me, but reveal it has. Beautifully recorded (naturally - it is an ECM production), patient to unfold, this is jazz to curl up to. Though the tracks are not named and the intent appears to be to look at a set of themes from different points of view, each has its own distinct personality and plenty of tuneful hooks. This is not blowing jazz, but a perfect melding of the talents of a youngsters with a jazz legend. All contributors shine on this one and it cannot be recommended more highly. To me, it stands just slightly above Suspended Night, which itself edges out Lontano - but I really wouldn't want to be without any of them.

With this ECM-album Stanko has decided to feature the young Polish rhythm section with whom he has played since 1994 - Marcin Wasilewski on piano, Slawomir Kurkiewicz on bass and Michal Miskiewicz on drums. The result is just anmazing.

Even now the band members are still only in their early thirties, but they play together with an ease and understanding of each other that make age irrelevant. They know Stanko's music intimately and their understated playing provides a sympathetic setting for him.

This band's music has a beautiful simplicity and economy about it. When one isolates the contributions of individuals, they can sound sparse and overly impressionistic; when one listens to the totality, all the pieces fit together and it makes perfect sense, with the whole being far greater than the sum of the parts.

The album takes the form of an extended composition in thirteen separate parts ("variations"), the longest lasting only just over eight minutes. The pieces have a consistency of tempo, sound and mood that gives the album an overarching unity. To be fully appreciated, the album needs to be heard in its entirety (but if you need to sample one piece, try "Variation VII"). Stanko's writing throughout is exquisite - full of melody, soul and allusions to past work.

Highly recommended.

FJB/O!-music 2006

This is a subtle and brilliant album. There is much more beneath the "Davis influenced" surface. Stanko has his own way of getting you there - and he will get you there if you listen.

This was my first listen to Stanko, and I initially wrote off this CD as another ripoff of the classic 1960's Miles Davis Quintet sound, but without a Wayne Shorter to complicate things. Repeated listenings have revealed Stanko to be a player steeped in Davis melancholy, but with his own things to say and (at times) a fiery way of saying them. His band is respectful to the point of almost sounding afraid to interrupt him. Thoughtful, elegant stylings for those cloudier days - and, in the classic ECM cliché, understated at times to the point of being almost invisible.

This is a very pleasing CD and up to Stanko's and the quartet's usual standards.

It is his first ecm album with those young Polish guys. They did a very good playing there, very much like they would be recording for ecm for ages. And Stanko's trumpet? It is just awesome... once again.