2013|06|20

The 7th Film and Art Festival Two Riversides will open with poetry-inspired jazz. On July 27th, the Market in Kazimierz Dolny will transform into a concert hall under the stars, where the Tomasz Stańko New York Quartet will perform. The musicians will pay homage to Wisława Szymborska, presenting the festival audience with a programme inspired by the Nobel prize-winner’s poetry. The show starts at 9:00 PM.

Four years ago, the poetess took part in a poetic soiree at the Krakow Opera, where Tomasz Stańko used his trumpet to improvise responses to Szymborska’s new poems. In turn, some of her work provided Stańko’s compositions with inspiration and titles. That’s how their mutual poetic-musical adventure started. “To share the stage with an artist of Szymborska’s calibre is like playing with Miles Davis or Keith Jarrett. The trumpet seemed to play on its own” – says Tomasz Stańko. His fascination with poetry resulted in “Wisława,” an album recorded in New York and released this year by the renowned record company ECM Records.

Tomasz Stańko, listed by the “New Yorker” among the most original and prolific jazz trumpeters, has performed in prestigious concert halls worldwide. Not long from now, we will hear him in Kazimierz Dolny. He will be accompanied by David Virelles on grand piano, Thomas Morgan on double bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. “I found three fantastic musicians in New York” – says Stańko about them. Thomas Morgan and Gerald Cleaver constitute one of the keenest rhythm sections in modern improvisational music. The Cuban pianist David Virelles, inspired by ritual music as well as Thelonius Monk and Andrew Hill, seems to be exceptionally well disposed towards the swelling darkness and exquisite eeriness of Stańko’s free ballads.

The work of Tomasz Stańko is also connected with film. The artist is credited for the scores of such pictures as “Farewell to Maria,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and “Rite of Passage 1947.”

photo: John Rogers / ECM Records