[.ca] Soul Of Things

Chronique amazon.fr:
Au fil des ans, le Polonais Tomasz Stanko s'est imposé comme un trompettiste majeur. Cela en dépit d'une profonde humilité doublée d'une discrétion non moins aiguë. À soixante ans passés, après avoir parcouru toutes les scènes du jazz européen, du free du début des années 60 avec les mythiques Jazz Darings au présent quartette en passant par Kryszstof Komeda, compositeur des bandes originales de certains films de Roman Polanski, avec lequel il fit un bout de chemin, Stanko a acquis une certaine sérénité qui le fait désormais, selon ses propres dires, aborder son instrument comme "une méditation". Une attitude exemplaire, qu'il partage avec les plus grands, de Coltrane à Cecil Taylor. Ouvert sur l'avenir, Stanko est ici accompagné par une section rythmique de jeunes musiciens polonais dont les envolées ne sont pas sans rappeler celles de nombreux trios qui ont œuvré pour le label ECM : Keith Jarrett, Bobo Stenson et Richard Beirach sont des noms qui viendront spontanément à l'esprit. D'ailleurs, ce disque fort réussi évoque celui qu'enregistra le trompettiste Kenny Wheeler avec Jarrett : Gnu High. La musique, sombre et mélancolique, est à l'image de la solarisation de la pochette, empruntée à L'Éloge de l'amour de Jean-Luc Godard. --Philippe Robert

From Amazon.co.uk:
Some new releases come with the word "classic" stamped invisibly on every note or phrase. Soul Of Things is just such a recording. Featuring 60-year-old Polish trumpet maestro Stanko in the company of a new, young yet already well honed trio of compatriots, this 75-minute, 13-part suite extends and distills the qualities of mellow swing, lyrical introspection and flaring assertion that distinguished Stanko's previous two ECM releases, the excellent Litania and From The Green Hill. If "Part 3" contains some of the most directly swinging, finger-clicking group music to be released on ECM for many a month, the concluding "Part 13" commences with Stanko solo, in ultra-poetic rubato mode. In between these thematically integrated extremes lie all manner of delights, with the level of interaction between Stanko and Marcin Wasilewski (piano), Slawomir Kurkiewicz (double-bass) and Michal Miskiewicz (drums) at times reminiscent of some of the finest moments of Belonging, the ECM classic of the 1970s with Jarrett, Garbarek, Danielsson and Christensen. This album is unmissable. --Michael Tucker

Subtle and Brilliant:
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.

It's probably not a good sign...:
...when, in the middle of a solo, the listener starts thinking about the musician's influences-instead of being carried along by the music. With almost every note the pianist played, I was distracted by such thoughts as: Where did I hear that before? Some old Herbie Hancock Blue Note date, maybe? Tomasz Stanko is one of my favorite trumpeters, and it has never occurred to me to think that he sounds like anyone but...himself. Here, I was repeatedly reminded of Miles Davis. This CD has received rave reviews everywhere. I'm puzzled. Am I missing something, or are there really that many people who have a weakness for pretty, conventional, utterly tame music? If you've never heard Stanko before, please don't let this be your introduction; it will give you no idea of just how spectacularly good he is. Stanko has produced at least 4 masterpieces, all of which belong in any serious jazz collection: FROM THE GREEN HILL, BLUISH, LITANIA and LEOSIA. This CD is not in the same league.

Conventional:
This is pretty conventional music without any harmonic, rhytmic or melodic inventiveness. Good only for background music.

Beautiful work from Stanko:
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.

A nice "cloudy day" CD:
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.

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