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Suspended Night |  | Artist: Tomasz Stanko
Label: Ecm Records
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $10.98
as of 8/1/2010 02:59 MDT details
You Save: $7.00 (39%)
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 62101
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 602498112441
EAN: 0602498112441
Release Date: May 11, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| | Song For Sarah | | | Suspended Variation I | | | Suspended Variation II | | | Suspended Variation III | | | Suspended Variation IV | | | Suspended Variation V | | | Suspended Variation VI | | | Suspended Variation VII | | | Suspended Variation VIII | | | Suspended Variation IX | | | Suspended Variation X |
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| Customer Reviews:
 Fine European Jazz April 3, 2010
J. Covington (USA, Houston,TX)
This recording from 2004 got quite a bit of press from jazz publications all over the world when first released. Tomasz Stanko the Polish trumpeter has been around since the early 1960's playing with pianists Adam Makowicz and Krzysztof Komeda who were established stars in Poland. Since then Stanko has become a star in his own right playing with some of the world's leading jazz musicians. He even played with Cecil Taylor in the 1980's. While always working to find his own voice, in all of the recordings that I have heard, Stanko has had definite ties to Miles Davis. In the early 1990's he lost most of his teeth and had to spend an incredible amount of time working to develop a new embouchure. As he has sometimes been criticized for being too Milesian, I have found his work to be refreshing and even though there are many nods to Miles, he manages to have an individual sound. Suspended Night is a group of 10 variations on a theme with one composition 'Song for Sarah'. Playing with Stanko in this quartet are some excellent young musicians - Marcin Wasilewski on piano, Slawomir Kurkiewicz on double-bass and Michal Miskiewicz on drums. There were some journalists that compared this recording to 'Kind of Blue' when it was released. While it is an excellent example of modern jazz, it is not nor should it be compared to 'Kind of Blue'. This is music with Stanko's haunting trumpet tone and superb interplay among all of the musicians. Highly recommended.
A great album from Poland February 19, 2010
James L. Settle (San Antonio, Texas)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I wasn't sure I'd like European jazz when I bought this album. No worries; it's turned out to be great!
Tomasz Stanko isn't a new player on the block. But this album is the first time I'd ever heard OF him. Now that I've actually heard him, I'm glad I bought it. I've always been a big Miles Davis fan, and Stanko blows a few bars that even old hard-to-please Miles would have approved of.
Give him a listen. This isn't his only good album, but it's a good place to start.
 Suspended in air January 30, 2010
IRate
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Meandering midnight moodiness with occasionally crisp contrast really just sounds by-the-numbers-intriguing to me.
 Kind of really blue. January 21, 2010
David J. Hill III
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Not quite as thematically focussed as Stanko's "The Soul of Things", this CD of the great Polish quartet is none-the-less a futher development of their style. Understated, but with a tendency to explode into a brief bop or even swing feel, this music grows on you with the listening. Not quite "Kind of Blue", but close. This is described by some as 2 A.M. music, but of course it is much more than the languid, heavily saxy and mindless nature of some of that type of music -which is often also associated with headaches. Coltrane's group provides Him with the same kind of framework as Stanko's group does for Him. This is top flight Jazz and this group will go down in Jazz History. I only give 4 stars as I wonder about the selection of songs. There is a sense of more latent potential in this group. Was there a mass of material to choose from as with the material that was edited down in some of Miles's Electric Period stuff? Were there "harder" or "lighter" versions? On song 3 we wait in vain for Stanko to take off with the rest of the group in this unusually upbeat tune. If that is indeed how the material was constructed for this CD, my only complaint is with the producer and not the performers!
New Directions in Jazz November 26, 2009
Keegan R. Lerch (Bethlehem, PA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
It's always nice to listen to an artist whom you have never heard of, and be completely knocked off your feet. That's what happened to me when I found this album by Tomasz Stanko. First I thought to myself, what an interesting name, and, wow, all of the other guys on this album have names that I can barely pronounce. Then, I saw that it was on ECM, one of my favorite labels to find new, cutting edge jazz. Well, these soon became afterthoughts, because I popped the album in my CD player and was immediatetly struck by the beauty of the music being created by the Tomasz Stanko quartet.
Tomasz Stanko, who I have since done some research on (and have already started looking at other albums of his), is from Poland, and decided to work with some younger teenagers from his homeland. Stanko began working with Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz, and Michal Miskiewicz on film work back in the mid 1990s, and the relationship has blossomed into an amazing jazz quartet. One of the most stunning things about this album how the beauty has not faded after multiple listenings; I am still struck by the openess and breathing room that these musicians work with and create. Stanko, who wrote all of the songs, has chosen to work with an intelligent performers who are shaping how jazz can, and will be conceived. Wasilewski's piano playing is one of my favorite attributes of the album (and this group), his harmonizations are interesting and push jazz forward; and it reminds me of Bill Evans most of all. Stanko's trumpet playing floats effortlessly above the wash of colors that his rhythm section offers him; he creates a dark, mysterious tone with his horn which interweaves with the sparceness of the ensemble.
The opening ballad, "Song for Sarah," is a beautiful song which rises out of the myst and is driven by compelling harmonies. The Suspend Night Variations, which fill out the rest of the album, are a canvas of laid-back, flowing, sometimes mysterious, and always beautiful jazz work. The interplay between these musicians is of a high caliber and the music seems to just flow out of everyone to create a wonderful collage of sounds that are extremely pleasing to listen to. This music moves in slow arcs and subtleties, which ultimately gives meaning to the title of the album and can leave the listener feeling slightly "suspended." I recommend this album to any Jazz listener, but especially to those who are seeking where jazz is headed, and the artists who have their finger on the pulse of modern music.
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