- Tomasz Stanko Quintet and Tord Gustavsen Ensemble, The Centre, Wednesday, June 30, at 7:30 p.m. as part of the TD Canada Trust Vancouver International Jazz Festival. To order tickets and for more information visit www.coastaljazz.ca.

- - -

Trumpeter Tomasz Stanko got his first taste of jazz in 1956. That was the year the Polish government stopped jamming the Voice of America radio signal enabling him to listen in on Willis Conover's weekly radio show.

During the Cold War, Western music was a hot topic behind the Iron Curtain where popular culture was one of the ideological weapons used to sway the hearts and minds of East European youth. Even the U.S. Congress fought to keep jazz and its kind off the VOA's official airwaves -- arguing it was not really representative of the right American interests -- but the music's power could not be denied. That jazz was forbidden made it that much more appealing to a Krakow teenager.

Almost unknown in the States, Conover's program, Music, USA, was a huge hit overseas. When the jazz DJ visited Poland in 1959 he was mobbed like a pop star at the airport. His hour-long show featured the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald or Mel Torme on a regular basis. Stanko listened in with millions of other jazz fans around the world.

"He had fantastic music all the time," recalls Stanko. "That was my first contact with jazz music. It was not legal in Poland but it was very popular during this period. My first knowledge of the music was through his radio program."

Stanko began studying classical piano and violin as a child but switched to trumpet in Scouts. His first teacher was a friend of his father who started him off playing mainstream tunes and standards. "Fairly soon after I heard the records of Ornette Coleman," he says. Free Jazz and The Shape of Jazz to Come introduced Coleman's radical ideas to the young musician and opened up a whole new world of sound. "That music inspired me in the beginning a lot," he says. "Also the George Russell Lydian system. Picking up on the avant garde was quite natural for me."

The lyrical approaches of trumpet favourites Chet Baker and Miles Davis established templates for Stanko as a player to follow but early on he was also interested in pushing the conceptual boundaries of free jazz improvisation.

Drawn to the maverick energy of people like Cecil Taylor (who visited Warsaw in 1965) Stanko kept the melodic focus to a minimum. By this time he was also travelling outside Poland in a band with the late, great pianist/composer/arranger Krzysztof Komeda. Known internationally for his work on Roman Polanski's films, Komeda's 1966 recording, Astigmatic, is recognized as one of the first great jazz records with a European sensibility. Stanko was part of those sessions and was a member of that groundbreaking band from 1963 to 1967. "I was pretty young. I was 20 when he engaged me for his band," he says. "It was a good stop. Komeda was a very important person for me because he was one of the best musicians in Europe at this time. He was very hardworking."

Stanko began composing his own music early on but that took a backseat when he was with Komeda. "Coltrane said if you want to build your own style, your own musical language you have to compose because composition helps you build your own sound. I started composing before Komeda (but when I was with him) I was more into his music which was very close to my own aesthetic."

Komeda, who died after an accidental fall in L.A. in 1969, had a profound influence on Stanko and his music. The trumpeter's recording debut with the Tomasz Stanko Quintet, Music For K, released in 1970 on the Polish Powerbros label, makes the connection explicit on tune after tune as the musicians marry improvisational pieces with composed structures.

Stanko was not willing to give up anything in his own music and took elements from different styles to create something new: the free jazz improvisational fierceness of Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman, the compositional rigor of John Coltrane and Jimmy Giuffre as well as the romantic lyricism of favourites Chet Baker and Miles Davis are all apparent in his music.

Komeda's cinematic vision is never far from the surface of Stanko's soundscapes and more than two decades after his friend's death Stanko returned to the original music on one of his first albums for ECM. Litania: The Music of Krzysztof Komeda features several works originally written for Polanski films as well as other tunes that made an impact on Stanko as a young musician.

Being asked to record for ECM, the prestigious jazz label run in Munich, Germany by Manfred Eicher, was a great honour says Stanko. "Generally Eicher participates in the sessions. Sometimes he has something to say about the music, at other times he doesn't say anything. I love to work with the guy."

Stanko has put out a string of outstanding albums on the ECM label over the past two decades. The latest, Dark Eyes, released last October, features a relatively young band made up of mainly northern European players: Danish guitarist Jakob Bro, Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila, Danish electric bass guitarist Anders Christensen and Finnish drummer Olavi Louhivuori.

Unusual for an ECM recording the album was made in the south of France. The musicians concentrated mainly on Stanko compositions with two Komeda works "Dirge for Europe" and "Etiuda baletowa nr. 3" rounding out the set list. The latter serves as a closer and was written in 1963, the year Stanko joined Komeda's influential band.

The trumpeter makes a rare visit to Vancouver next week for a show at the Centre Wednesday, June 30 as part of this year's TD Canada Trust Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

jgoodman@nsnews.com