Tomasz Stańko Quartet - Matka Joanna (1995)

After three fleeting appearances on ECM in the two decades prior, only one of them as leader, Tomasz Stańko stepped into Oslo's Rainbow Studio in the spring of 1994 to make the label his primary home for the rest of his life.  One wonders if Manfred Eicher listened to Bosonossa and heard a career renaissance in the making that he simply had to have on his roster - not least because the trumpeter's sense of space was just crying out for the sympathetic ear of Jan-Erik Kongshaug.

The Bosonossa quartet was imported intact, with Tony Oxley's eerie percussion introducing Monastery In The Dark like echoing footsteps on ancient stone floors.  The inspiration for this album was Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s 1961 film Matka Joanna od Aniołów (Mother Joan of the angels), for which much of this unsettling, spacious music could've made a good soundtrack.  Stańko, Stenson and Jormin all work together brilliantly, but the star turn in the quartet definitely belongs to Oxley here, right through to the closing percussion solo where the nunnery's malevolent spirits are finally exorcised.

link
pw: sgtg

Tomasz Stańko - Bosonossa And Other Ballads (1993)

YEEESSSS finally got hold of a copy of this!  Majorly out of print (seeming to have disappeared from the GOWI label's catalogue on their own website), Bosonossa is well worth chasing down.  Stańko's quartet with which he'd return to ECM the following year (on Matka Joanna - will post sometime) appear here fully-formed, and sound fantastic on this masterpiece of an album.

Six tracks in just shy of an hour means that everyone gets a chance to stretch out and showcase their considerable talents alongside Stańko.  Drummer Tony Oxley is particularly adept at sketching the atmospherics - I remember one reviewer of Matka Joanna likening him to 'a ghost dragging its chains around', and the same is true in places here.  ECM familiars Bobo Stenson and Anders Jormin contribute some stunning pianism and thick, meaty bass respectively, brilliantly rendered in a production job by Stańko himself.

As for the (sadly now late) trumpeter, he's on top form throughout, spitting out firecrackers of sound one moment then languidly breathing out the residual smoke trails the next.  His chosen material for Bosonossa is inspired as always - his 80s staple Sunia gets its most respectful and drawn-out treatment on record, and three of the other tracks he was rightly proud enough of to recast them in the initial phase of his ECM homecoming.  Fans of Matka Joanna and Leosia will therefore enjoy both a bit of familiarity, and also the sheer brilliance of these tracks in their original outings.  But to be honest, anyone who likes Stańko, or just great quartet jazz, is in for a treat here of the highest order.

link

previously posted at SGTG:
Jazzmessage From Poland (1972)
Purple Sun (1973)
Freelectronic in Montreux (1987)
Bluish (1991)
Dark Eyes (2009)
Wisława (2013) 
Polin (2014)