Balladyna (LP)

An essential document of European jazz in the 1970s, and a recording that still sounds magnificent today, Balladyna exerted an enduring influence on successive generations of improvising musicians - in Poland and Finland above all, though it also cast its spell more widely. As Tomasz Stanko once said, "My international name was built on Balladyna." On the record, the Polish trumpeter is joined by his close collaborator Edward Vesala on drums ("We were like brothers," Stanko later said), saxophonist Tomasz Szukalski and master bassist Dave Holland, brought to the session by Manfred Eicher. Even though it was only the trumpeter's debut for the label, it presented Stanko's unique melodic voice in an already fleshed-out framework, with his earlier freer influences still looming in the band's explosive undercurrent. The quartet explores the seven originals on the album with a strong sense of rhythmic propulsion and melodic curiosity throughout. Recorded at Tonstudio Bauer in 1975, Balladyna was produced by Manfred Eicher.

Re-issued as part of ECM's Luminessence series, Balladyna arrives in a tip-on gatefold jacket with new liner notes and photos from the archive.