Tomasz Stańko – Music for K (Polish Jazz, vol. 22)

January 1970 • Polskie Nagrania Muza

I don't know what it is with Europeans and jazz, but they sure can make some nice tunes. Music for K seems to be some sort of tribute (at least in part) to the legendary Krzysztof Komeda (his album Astigmatic is still one of my favorites), and it continues the apparent Polish jazz tradition excellently (not that I'm anywhere near a jazz expert, but you know).

Music for K really hits that sweet spot between bebop and free jazz—it goes well beyond the relatively stale confines of '50s bop (not saying I don't still enjoy that kind of stuff, of course) without going too far into the super-improvisational ultra-artsy avant-garde realm that I never really was able to enjoy. Even if everyone is improvising all at once, they still manage to keep themselves on the same page as far as a consistent mood, never going off into pure free-improv mode but still having things interesting enough to keep the listener on their toes.

Another great thing about this album is how dynamic it is—things are constantly moving and changing, with rapid-fire trumpet and sax improvisations quickly shifting into a more minimal drum solo and then building back up to a noisy climax in "Czatownik", for example. Or the shift from the fast-paced and dissonant opening of "Cry" to its slow and somber ending; on the way you'll never notice the transition, as it always comes very naturally. The "theme" in the opening and closing moments tie everything together into a nice package, leaving the listener neatly right back where they started.

Being this sort of jazz it does have its fair share of long stretches of solos, of course—Stańko has to have his time showing off his trumpet chops. Fortunately he doesn't go too overboard with the soloing; in fact, when I get tired of the solo in "Nieskończenie mały", it shifts into a unison theme just in time. Focus almost always seems to be on group texture and atmosphere and rarely on individual performance, something I prefer in jazz (and everywhere else, really), so it never feels like I'm getting bogged down.

I'm probably way underqualified to review stuff like this (even having played in my share of jazz bands) but it's still exciting to discover old records like this that are really quite good but slip past most people's radars nowadays (at least, in my demographic). Definitely worth trying out even if you aren't a huge jazz fan.

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