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 - Smooth Jazz Aaaaa... NO!!!!!EMC, a label known for polished recording and production fails on this bum production. Listen to any sample and try to remember that this is an EMC release, and I'm not a huge fane of the label, but this music is what they should play for recovering cancer patients in the hospital. Plane and simple, this music sucks, and that's coming from a mid-twenties musician with 3,000 jazz recordings -K. Rating:  - Excellent, Just ExcellentI am a Tomasz Stanko fan. I tried this CD on a whim since Tomasz was playing on it. I absolutley love it. A very beautiful CD that is very pleasing to my ear. Wonderful, slow, rhythmic melodies. One of my all time favorite Jazz CD's and I have ~ 1500 of them. Rating:  - a dissapointment, with a few redeeming qualitieswhile i'm not that familiar with a lot of katche's work, when i saw the personnel on this disc i happily plunked down my money. stanko and 2 of his young trio and jan garbarek? how could i go wrong? obviously, quite wrong. this may be the best smooth jazz album ever made. however, if you don't like smooth jazz, that isn't saying much. it's katche, really, that ruins this album. a previous reviewer referred to this music as "light." very true. but it's also harmonically and rhythmically simplistic, giving no challenges to the improvisers whatsoever. it's handcuffing, relegating a great young bassist's baselines to ostinato "grooves" that go nowhere. stanko tries to break out a bit, playing a few of his trademark "whisper to a scream" lines, but they don't fit in this unimaginative, "smooth" music. wasieleski's usual brilliant uses of free rhythm are locked into adult contemporary grooves. at times, katche hangs back and lets the rest of the group shine a bit, which keeps this from being a 1 star album. but basically, it's easy listening, something you can put on when your friends who think dave sanborn is jazz come over for dinner. this comes a such a dissapointment because of the quality of the players, and i sincerely hope no one who buys this record is hearing stanko and his young cohorts for the first time, as it shows none of their true talents and personality. do yourself a favor and check out "suspended night" or "soul of things." i know garbarek (whose vast output is all over the map, sometimes great) has recorded with katche quite a bit in recent years, and his "in praise of dreams," (which i admittedly haven't heard)was similarly panned as being overly "smooth" by many. this is a shame, as he is a great artist who should be recognized for his achievements, not this misstep. stanko fans beware. Rating: - listenable jazz and great piano (FJB/O!-music 2006)Very listenable jazz. Beautifull piano of Marcin Wasilewski!! Great combination of Stanko on trumpet and Garbarek on tenor saxophone, blending very good. Easy drumming by Manu Katche, never getting in the way of the music. The rhythm-duo (Slawomir Kurkiewicz on bass) does what it must do: create the base of the songs, but with a great sense of timing and subtlety. The sound of the album depents very much on the sound of Wasilewski's piano. The second song sounds a little like EST, but it doesn't get the same intensity of some EST-material. But that's no problem here. Full and warm recording, with enough aspects for both the romantic and the cool intelectual. (Further more I recomend the good review of Jazzcat.) Rating: - Very nice neighbours to haveThis cd is highly enjoyable. It's not a usual ECM record I can say. It's a little bit easier harmonically in a sense, but meantime it's still of very high artistic value. It is a very balanced recording. It's at the same time deep and fresh music. You can listen to it accurately or you can loop it in the background and be really happy with it. Stanko and Garbarek form a very interesting horn duo. Katché is a light drummer, his playing is modern, very sensitive and accurate. He has a really nice touch on the drum set. As I keep listening to this album again and again I still find it quite different from the common ECM catalogue (I mean the cameristic music they often publish). It is light and intriguing, a little more bouncing, rhytmic music. Of course it depends from the fact that it has a drummer as the leader, I don't know. Anyway it is a very nice record for the connossoir but for the novice too. I mean that I feel to suggest it even to those unfamiliar with Jazz because it's a very easy listening in my opinion. So if you jazz novices want to buy a nice jazz cd to appear sophisticated when friends come to visit you this could be the one. Stanko does some exceptional trumpet playing over some quite urban, sophisticated, light tunes. I appreciated Katcheé's playing very much and Wasilewski piano playing too. The ensembe is very unique, coherent and they complement each other perfectly.
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