Biography
Tomasz Stańko
Born 1942-07-11, Rzeszów
He debuted at the end of the 1950s in Krakow. Joachim Ernst Berendt considered him the first free-jazz trumpeter in Europe. In the 1960s Stanko joined Krzysztof Komeda’s quintet, soon became its mainstay, and recorded with it a masterpiece of European jazz, LP Astigmatic.
In the early 1970s, at the helm of Tomasz Stanko Quintet, he came to the forefront of the free jazz scene and was featured at major European festivals. His subsequent projects reinforced this stature: Unit with Polish pianist Adam Makowicz, and quartet co-led with Norwegian drummer Edward Vesala that in 1975 attracted attention of ECM’s Manfred Eicher. Stanko’s ECM debut, Balladyna, has become a legend on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. In the 1980s Stanko was enlisted by Cecil Taylor to his line-ups, and led his own C.O.C.X. and Freelectronic bands that incorporated reggae, Latino, electronic, and rap inspirations.
The 1990s saw Stanko’s return to the jazz summit and another phase of his liaison with ECM label. His new quartet featuring pianist Bobo Stenson, bassist Anders Jormin, and drummer Tony Oxley was hailed as the best jazz group of the decade – a rare top rating of Leosia album in the Penguin Jazz Guide. Released in 1997 Litania, a tribute to the music of Krzysztof Komeda, has became his first global bestseller. The subsequent Stańko’s ECM releases Soul of Things and Suspended Night recorded with a young Polish quartet at the beginning of the new century have brought him to the orbit of the American market, where he has been touring regularly ever since. In 2002 he was the first winner of the European Jazz Prize awarded in Vienna, two years later in Poland he was honoured with a high state decoration, the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Rebirth of Poland.
For eight years now Tomasz Stańko has been regularly ranked among the world’s top ten jazz trumpeters in the prestigious annual Down Beat Magazine Poll. The same poll listed him among the world’s top jazz composers as well. Stańko as a leader has released 37 albums, has also composed music for numerous films and theatrical productions. He is a NYC Manhattan resident since 2008. His previous CD, Dark Eyes, was recorded in 2009 with a new quintet of young Scandinavian talent. He currently works also with New York City musicians, such as Lee Konitz and Craig Taborn.
In 2010 in Poland Stanko’s autobiography Desperado was published and as best selling as his records. In 2011 The Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest complex of museums and educational and research centres, published six-CD collection Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology, which is concluded with Tomasz Stańko’s composition Suspended Night Variation VIII, an honour bestowed on a very few non-US artists. In the same year President of Poland Mr. Bronisław Komorowski awarded Tomasz Stańko Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Rebirth of Poland.
2013 brings a new album, “Wisława”. Like his early hero Miles Davis, Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko has a gift for shaping great bands, and this one, formed in the world’s jazz capital, overflows with promise. The bass and drums team of Thomas Morgan and Gerald Cleaver is one of the most sensitive in contemporary improvising, and Cuban-born pianist David Virelles, inspired by ritual music as well as by Thelonious Monk and Andrew Hill, seems particularly well-attuned to the brooding darkness and sophisticated dread of Stanko’s free ballads. In the uptempo pieces all four players seem to enter new territory, with very exciting results. The double-album programme of new Stanko compositions is inspired also by the poetry of Wisława Symborska, the Polish poet, essayist and Nobel Laureate, who died in 2012. As Stanko writes in the CD booklet, “Reading Wisława Szymborska’s words gave me many ideas and insights. Meeting her and interacting with her poetry also gave impetus to this music, which I would like to dedicate, respectfully, to her memory.”
At the beginning of 2014 Tomasz Stanko was honored with three prestigious awards: „Kreator Kultury/The Culture Creator” the title awarded annually by the most influential Polish weekly „Polityka”, „Prix du Musicien Européen/The European Musician Prize” – awarded for the current and lifetime achievement by The French l’ Académie du Jazz; „Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik/The German Record Critics’Award” one of three annual honorary awards given by an independent association of more than 140 music journalists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
