Tomasz Stańko - Music For K

Back in 1970, when this disc was recorded, Tomasz Stanko, by now an internationally established and admired jazz personality, was already known as one of the very few convincing free-jazzmen. In his bold endeavours he was lucky to enjoy some understanding and sensitive partners. Earlier, in the sixties Stanko's experiences were both as a sideman and a leader. He cooperated with such greats as Krzysztof Komeda, Wlodzimierz Nahorny, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Andrzej Trzaskowski, Don Cherry and Albert Mangelsdorff, but his favourite partners were Janusz Muniak, Janusz Stefanski, Zbig Seifert and - a bit later - Bronislaw Suchanek. Tomasz Stanko Quintet flourished without personal changes for five years (1969-1973), scoring a big success during 1970 Jazz Jamboree.

Around that time, a year after untimely death of Krzysztof Komeda (1939-1969), the quintet recorded four pieces by Stanko, naming the LP after the main composition: Music for K", thus paying homage to the memory of deceased friend and expressing his emotional attitude toward his premature death. However, Stanko didn't attempt to relate here to Komeda's sound or style
and remains very much himself presenting his peculiar, personal way of shaping music, remote, on the surface only, from the structural clarity. His predilection toward spontaneous development of music, based on very few indispensable determinants, surprisingly dovetails here with the emotional content of such deeply felt numbers like "Cry" and "Music for K". It seems obvious that Stanko's free stems rather from Coltrane's last work and his shades of expression are rich and many.