TOMASZ STANKO INTERVIEWED 2009: A blow for freedom

To hear trumpeter Tomasz Stańko tell it, life in Poland in the 1960s might not have been quite as grim and mono-chromatic as we believe. -Certainly there was the irony of playing free jazz in the politically repressive atmosphere, and he laughs knowingly when offered a quote by composer-pianist Thelonious Monk: “Jazz and freedom go hand in hand.”

“But you see in my time Poland was different from other countries in the Communist bloc,” he says. “Even in my diploma I was doing a jazz programme. Of course, in my younger time there was a different culture, very dark. Jazz was then forbidden.

“But in the 60s everything was a little more open. In the movies we had [director Roman] Polanski and there was [composer Krzysztof] Penderecki with Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. So Poland was different.”

Today, Stańko – whose formative musical moment was seeing American pianist Dave Brubeck in 1958, before being inspired by Ornette Coleman and making the great leap sideways into free jazz – is one of Europe’s most prominent and respected jazz musicians.

He has been signed to prestigious European label ECM for the past 15 years, and has worked in Europe with many American musicians, including avant-garde players such as Lester Bowie and free-jazz piano genius Cecil Taylor.

For the rest of this interview which was published in the New Zealand Listener February 21-27 2009 go here. For more on Tomasz Stanko at Elsewhere go here.

Added: 19 Dec 09

> Suspended Night
(roll over button for pricing/availability)