Stanko, Tomasz * Balladyna (ECM Luminessence Series) [New 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 it's spell more widely. As Tomasz Stanko once said, "My international name was built on Balladyna." 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.