Tomasz Stanko New York Quartet, Wislawa

At age 70 Polish trumpet-master, composer, bandleader Tomasz Stanko has been on the scene for so many years, one sometimes forgets how long it's been. Before he was signed to ECM I came across some of his gems from the '60s on the national Polish label which happily brought him to my attention. That was the early '70s. They were rather hard to find and did not get a great deal of attention over here, but showed him in excellent light. Once he was on ECM, a wider audience came to appreciate him in the States and he kept up his output with various phases, virtually always very fine music, including the introduction of electronic instruments and so forth.

Now we stand nearly a decade and a half into the millennium and he continues to thrive. He celebrates that in a way with his latest, Wislawa (ECM) a double album with his New York Quartet (with David Virelles piano / Thomas Morgan double bass / Gerald Cleaver drums). In some ways he is coming full circle.

It's vibrant acoustic jazz with a compositional side and of course as you would expect plenty of space for the Stanko trumpet. Both aspects of his music put him in a category of one and that still is true.

There is a great deal of music on this set and it takes some time to digest. This music often has a laid-back quality that could make you forget to listen carefully and just bask in the mellow light. But a few listens into it and the music comes forward in full relief. It's seminal Stanko and the band sets the music off well.

Stanko is a treasure. You'll find some of the reasons why on the new album. Excellent listening.

Nate Wooley Keeps On Getting Better: "(Put Your) Hands Together"

With Nate Wooley, and with his latest quintet album (Put Your) Hands Together (Clean Feed CF218CD), there is plenty to suggest that growth is a factor. Nate as an artist, trumpet-composer-bandleader, does not stand still. It's a very balanced album with a band that provides the freewheeling solo work you would expect from Nate's outfit, yet also has developed an ensemble sound, thanks in part to Nate's compositions-arrangements, but also thanks to the sensibilities of the players involved. Some of these players were a part of Harris Eisenstadt's Canada Day II, which I covered a few days ago. These are players that obviously seek each other's company because of stylistic affinities. And that is a sort of controlled freedom that stresses the collective and the individual, fire and subtlety, spontaneity and form.

Everybody contibutes here. And Nate's trumpet is a smouldering fire that breaks into a bright flame when the time is right, but also can have a quietly searching quality. The charts, the group and the trajectory of the album follows his muse accordingly.

This is excellent ensemble jazz of the modern kind. Like so many releases coming out of Clean Feed lately, it establishes that "inside" and "outside" have their limitations as categories. The music is both. The music is neither. The music is worth your time.

Peter Evans' Brilliant Deconstruction of "All the Things You Are"

Trumpeter Peter Evans is to me without question one of the brightest new lights in the free-improv firmament today. He is a fabulous trumpeter. He can go the art of noise route with an incredible array of techniques to extend the instrumental possibilities of his instrument. He can play with the roots of the music in various ways too. The Peter Evans Quartet Live in Lisbon (Clean Feed 173) gives you the second Mr. Evans. And it is brilliant! Brilliant in conception. Brilliant in execution.

It's Peter and a well equipped quartet that includes Ricardo Gallo, piano, Tom Blancarte, double bass, and Kevin Shea, drums. Much of the performance is a rather amazing go at turning "All the Things You Are" into something quite avant but retaining the harmonic and melodic features of the song as played by countless improvisers from the bop era on.

What they do defies easy description. Suffice to say that they fragment the theme and the harmonic base, rhythmically displace it to the point where it's not displacement, it's recomposition, and otherwise transform it into something entirely contemporary. And Peter's trumpet playing must be heard here to be appreciated.

It's one of the most interesting rethinkings of a standard I've ever heard. And it does not sound forced.

It is one of those CDs that will literally take you someplace NEW. It has the roots, but the tree has a very cool new look. Beautiful performance!!