Album: Tomasz Stanko Quintet, Dark Eyes, (ECM)
Polish trumpeter Stanko's new Finnish and Nordic quintet, with Jacob Bro on guitar, can sound either plangently acoustic or modestly electric.
While this is a relatively low-key Stanko set, it's still full of his customary quiet intensity, both in his own excellent playing and that of the band. Unusually for any album, Dark Eyes gets better the longer it goes on, and the highlights are the two compositions by Krzysztof Komeda: "Dirge for Europe" and "Etiuda Baletowa No 3". Komeda – a genius composer who wrote film music for Polanski – died in 1969.
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