Bits of a Song

Tomasz Stanko - "Song for Sarah"
Suspended Night (ECM, 2004)

Listening to this one at 4AM last night (or this morning) was an awesome experience. The album is called Suspended Night, so calling it nocturnal is rather redundant, but listening to it at a time when you can put the volume on 3 because the constant white noise of the day subsided hours subsided hours ago and let the dark spaces thus revealed amplify the music was really something. Post-2AM the night's stillness is just as expressive as the hustle and bustle 12 hours prior. Stanko and his band, playing in a style derived from the impressionistic-romantic side of Miles Davis's 2nd Quintet, captured and developed that feeling perfectly, the trumpeter's notes wavering under the weight of some old pain or nostalgia.

A fashion tip to Mr. Stanko: hat and scowl, yes; backwards leather beret and smile, no, unless the goofy white version of Mario Van Peebles look was intentional.