Lontano - Tomasz Stanko Quartet
Lontano is the third album by 64-year-old Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko to team him with a trio of exceptionally talented young countrymen who started playing with him while still in their teens: pianist Marcin Wasilewski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz. Yes, the trio, which has recorded on its own, pushes him with its fresh energy and ideas. But the support team is no less inspired by Stanko’s spare, intensely understated approach to melody and harmony, which draws generously from Miles Davis, and his elastic sense of time. More dependent on spatial constructs and free form improvising than its richly atmospheric previous effort, Suspended Night (which some critics called Stanko’s Kind of Blue), Lontano doesn’t always deliver on the risks it takes. The music sometimes loses momentum. But the trumpeter’s pensive lyrical authority and Wasilewski’s controlled abandon make for a good combination, especially on a pair of Stanko tunes first recorded in 1965 and 1975, respectively. –Lloyd Sachs
