Lontano

Played with beauty, restraint, and introspection, Stanko’s Lontano is another step forward for this European vet, whose profile in the States continues to grow. The 64-year-old Polish trumpeter has been playing professionally for more than 40 years with great originality, refinement, and self-assurance, and the younger musicians who fill out his quartet — Marcin Wasilewski on piano, Slawomir Kurkiewicz on bass, and Michel Miskiewicz on drums — accompany him with empathy. The focus here is on establishing mood and atmosphere, at times even calling to mind the impressionism of, say, Debussy. The music also calls to mind late-‘60s Miles Davis, both because of Stanko’s horn sound — fragile yet graceful, serene but searching, simmering gently, but burnished and a bit chilling — and in the modal concept underlying many of the tunes. The three collectively improvised title tracks, which comprise 40 minutes, will amaze listeners who tend to think of free jazz as harsh, dissonant, and aggressive. Stanko originally recorded Krzysztof Komeda’s “Kattorna” with the composer in 1965, and it lightly pulses forward atop a modal, slightly funky piano vamp. The other tracks are meditative ballads, although Stanko is not afraid to unleash a torrent of notes (on “Trista,” for example) should the impulse strike him. The “ECM sound” — tremendous clarity, full of gaping space — truly befits this elegant music.