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Oct. 20--Poland has produced several exceptional jazz musicians, but veteran trumpeter Tomasz Stanko commands a stylistic niche of his own.
Combining the high lyricism of Polish classical music with the free-ranging spirit of post-bebop American jazz, Stanko chooses to seduce his listeners rather than accost them. To the casual listener, his music might seem simplistic. Listen more closely, however, and there's real profundity in this work.
Playing before a sizable audience Wednesday night at HotHouse, Stanko turned in a more probing set than he had 1 1/2 years ago in the same room. Perhaps the near-bedlam that ensued during his 2005 show, when too many people were allowed into the room, had muted Stanko's art. Or maybe the subtlety of his improvisations simply had been overwhelmed by the audience din.
Whatever the reason, Stanko sounded more free, open and engaging this time, while his rhythm players supported him more adroitly. In essence, listeners heard a first-rate jazz quartet that elegantly combined the musical impulses of two cultures.
Playing in support of his newest recording, "Lontano," Stanko unspooled the gauzy lines, hushed tone and gently elided phrases that long have formed his musical signature. But there was more than that at work here. Few trumpeters can bend a pitch as delicately as Stanko did or articulate shifts in tone color with comparable control.
True, none of this work would have been possible without a trumpet vocabulary established by American masters, particularly Miles Davis and Clark Terry. Yet Stanko learned his lessons well, building on these precedents to achieve a purling melodic beauty of his own.
Not that everything was quite so ethereal. In some instances, Stanko produced fleet passages and brilliant tone colors that established the range of expression at his disposal. Yet, for the most part, he dealt in jazz nocturnes brought to a high polish.
And at least one player in the band sounded at least as eloquent as Stanko: pianist Marcin Wasilewski, whose knack for anticipating Stanko's silences proved nearly telepathic. More important, Wasilewski emerged as a formidable soloist, the pianist triply blessed with a gorgeous tone, a quasi-orchestral approach to the keyboard and a harmonic imagination of impressive scope.
After Wasilewski's performance, one yearns to hear him leading a band of his own.
With tender bowed passages from bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and lithe rhythms from drummer Michal Miskiewicz, this long-running quartet is playing at its peak.
hreich@tribune.com
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Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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