Tomasz Stanko - Leosia

The second ECM album from this Polish-Swedish-British edition of the Tomasz Stanko Quartet follows the critically-heralded Matka Joanna. As Jazz Journal wrote, Trumpeter Stanko's vibrant breadth of tone and poetic feeling for cross-rhythmic drama are second to none. Leosia marks a further progression, incorporating six first-rate Stanko compositions in his brooding Slavic style, darker than the darkest Miles (and incorporating a tribute to Lautr�amont, literature's Count of Darkness), as well as bracing and exploratory duo and trio improvisations, and solos of the higherst calibre by all concerned. The group has an unusual claim on idiomatic completeness; it seems to summarize, in highly original manner, many of the important developments of jazz of the last 30 years. Stanko, however, distances himself from the general drift toward reinterpretation of standards in the 1990s. His bent notes, slurs, smears and violent fanfares are put to the service of a new group music.