https://youtu.be/WQgXpjrQJYM?si=VL4S_mjepGd2SPYZ


Tomasz Stańko Quintet

Tomasz Stańko - trumpet
Zbigniew Seifert - violin
Janusz Muniak - soprano saxophone, flute, percussion
Bronisław Suchanek - double bass
Janusz Stefański - drums, flexatone


All compositions are a result of collective improvisation.
Recorded by Norddeutscher Rundfunk at Jazzhouse, Hamburg 9.11.1972
Recording Supervisor: Michael Naura
Recording Engineer: Sönke Hennings
Executive Producer: Stefan Gerdes (NDR)
Mastered by Marcin Cichy - Plug Audio Mastering
Lacquer half speed cut by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios
Graphic design: Natalia Łabędź
Translation: Magda Marcinkowska
Photo: Paweł Karpiński

The discovery of Tomasz Stańko's archive recordings from 50 years ago at Radio Bremen demonstrated the dynamic development of this shrouded in mystery quintet, which was a blank spot in the history of Polish jazz. Released by Astigmatic Records, the album turned out to be a surprise and a huge musical treat for many fans who no longer remember such a fiery period in the career of the outstanding trumpeter. The record received much critical acclaim and sold out in a blink, and Jazz Forum magazine recognised Wooden Music I as the historic album of the year. Now the time has come for the 2nd and final installment of wooden music.

It takes more than one album to fully illustrate the evolution of the band with which Tomasz Stańko, as its leader, recorded Music for K, one of the most important albums in Polish jazz. It is the early 1970s, Zbigniew Seifert gives up the saxophone in favour of the violin, so the band's sound becomes more 'wooden', and around this expression Stańko builds the foundations of a philosophy, which he wrote down on four small sheets of paper, still kept by Bronisław Suchanek, the quintet's bass player:
We seek to create the kind of music that, while operating with all the elements of the most genuine jazz, attempts to look at it from a different angle, from a different mental plane. We do not experiment with the material, but with the form. For the form does not have to be a logical and strict construction of the entire piece, it can be free, improvised while playing, resulting from the mood, or atmosphere existing at a given moment, or random things, creating with their free fluidity that specific "magical mood". This, of course, excludes compositions in the traditional sense - Tomasz Stańko wrote at the time.

Wooden Music is therefore like a postcard - not so much of a specific gig, but of the entire period of the quintet's activity. It opens with compositions featured on Jazzmessage from Poland. Wooden Music.......
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