Tomasz Stanko: War Songs

Tomasz Stanko Quartet - Maldoror's War Song
From Matka Joanna: ECM 1544 [Buy Here]

Tomasz Stanko and the Motion Trio - Tchetchenie
Live recording from Polish Jazz Network

Yeah, let's carry on with trumpet players shall we? Tomasz Stanko is a European musician who is finally getting some of the attention he deserves, thanks in large part to some landmark recordings on ECM in the past ten years. But of course his career goes back far longer, having played at one time or another with many of the European avant garde and mainstream.

Image Copyright Karlheinz Kluter

The first Stanko CD I bought was 1994's Matka Joanna, an album that pretty much threw my expectations of jazz up into the air, blasted them apart into a gazillion tiny pieces and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to reassemble an opinion from the debris. Maldoror's War Song is my favourite Stanko composition (reprised in a warmer context on 2002's Soul of Things). This is the classic bop "song" form, (head-solos-head), but there is massive freedom implied throughout the bulk of the piece. Check Tony Oxley's drumming!

The other selection I've posted here is Tchetchenie, a live performance of Tomasz Stanko with fellow Polish musicians, the extraordinary accordionists, The Motion Trio. A sometimes searing performance that (judging by its title) is intended as a commentary on the continuing conflict in Chechenya. I found this recording on the Polish Jazz Network site, so you can either download it above, or find the file on their site here.

Honourable mentions for a Monday:
David Fenech links to a site (eye-watering design!) featuring the Sounds of the Strasbourg Underground (or D'Klangen us d'Untergrund vo Strossburi, or something like that if you speak Alsatian) . So this is what young French people are getting up to these days.

Ubuweb has posted a complete version Marshall McCluhan's 1960's recording The Medium is the Massage. Trust me, being a Canadian intellectual has never sounded so much fun!