Lontano
Released
Although trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and his Polish quartet constituted one of the beacons of the ECM label, one must search for shadows—not light—to arrive at their profoundest shores. In that regard, Lontano is as good a place to start as any for those new to this nexus. Here are musicians who think out loud, treating every tune as an epilogue for a journey that long precedes us. This sense of arrival is especially potent in “Cyrhla,” “Kattorna,” and “Trista.” Through it all, Stanko’s brass opens its heart to the possibility of self-expansion, one breath at a time.