Soul of Tomasz

Jazz has often been described as the sound of freedom -- an art imbued with democratic (and thus distinctly American) ideals. The music of Tomasz Stanko both confirms and refutes this notion, bearing witness to a world of freedoms lost and gained, cultures transformed. As Poland’s premier improvising musician, and one of the most widely hailed in Europe, Stanko proves that jazz can exist without an authenticating American experience (until this month, the 60-year-old trumpeter had never toured in the States). Yet Stanko’s burnished, imploring aesthetic owes as much to American jazz precursors as to the landscape and influences of his lifelong home.

Stanko first heard jazz as a teenager on Willis Conover's Voice of America radio broadcasts, which were funded by the U.S. State Department on the premise that Ellington and Armstrong could undermine Iron Curtain rule. In one sense, they did: Stanko has described perceiving jazz during his adolescence as "the opposite of Communism." His earliest heroes were Chet Baker and Miles Davis, and his own trumpet tone still reflects shadings of both. But the discovery that launched Stanko's jazz career came elsewhere, in two parts: George Russell's Lydian concept of improvisation and the Ornette Coleman Quartet.

"In my young times," Stanko reminisces in English from his Warsaw home, "I was into literature and painting, and looking for the avant-garde in any kind of experiences. It was kind of natural for me, for these reasons, to look for Ornette's music. Also, with this new style it was more natural to find my own language -- in new kinds of things, not through copies of Miles or Chet. It was easier for me to find myself." The harmonic breakthrough of Russell's Lydian theory, as implemented by Coleman, prompted Stanko to action. In 1962, he formed the Jazz Darings, probably the first European ensemble devoted to Coleman's early brand of free-jazz. When this group won an amateur contest the following year, Stanko came to the attention of Krzysztof Komeda, the physician-turned-pianist/composer who had defined modern jazz in Poland after the decline of Stalinist suppression. Throughout the '60s Stanko toured and recorded with the pianist, and participated in a number of his film soundtracks (Komeda wrote scores for such noteworthy directors as Roman Polanski, Ingmar Bergman and Andrzej Wajda).

The influence of cinema pervades Stanko's oeuvre as a leader, perhaps most pointedly in recent years. A decade ago he composed a soundtrack for the Polish movie A Farewell to Maria, achieving a canvas of mood on par with the work of Komeda. A few years later Stanko saluted his late mentor more directly with Litania: The Music of Krzysztof Komeda (ECM), which included several Polanski themes. His most recent release, Soul of Things (ECM), bears a cover image appropriated from Jean-Luc Godard's recent feature In Praise of Love. The suitelike album is a theme parsed into 14 variations. And Stanko traces much of their content back to the stage and screen: "I think 80 percent of these variations are leitmotifs from the cinema or theater. Leitmotifs are kinds of melodies. And I'm not a very typical film or theater composer, but I build moods using jazz music -- a little similar to what Miles did for Elevator to the Gallows."

The allusion to Louis Malle's 1958 film noir is apt; Davis performed that score as a stark improvisation, rooted in an undercurrent of swing. Soul of Things spans a wider range of tonal colors, but strikes the same atmospheric chord. Stanko won't endorse the impression of this chord as wistful ("Music for me is not really happy or unhappy; it depends how you are") -- but he cedes that his work generally does convey "the kind of feeling that we have in the northern part of Europe, a little the same like Chopin has: a kind of lyricism together with melancholy." If there's a parallel in the jazz canon, it might be Ornette Coleman's yearning "Lonely Woman." (At this suggestion, Stanko brightly concurs: "Yeah, exactly! I love that mood so, so much.")

As he takes to the road, Stanko affirms that "the music is evolving and changing." Given the rhythm section of pianist Marcin Wasilewski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz -- some of Poland's most impressive younger talent -- this would seem only natural. As on record, these musicians join with Stanko to fill minimalist outlines with evocative colors, as a cohesive and free-seeking whole.

Tomasz Stanko Quartet, Sat., Nov. 2, 8 p.m., $15, Tritone, 1508 South St., 215-545-0475.

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Soul of Tomasz

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