Chris Batchelor Quintet

Event information

In February at Off the Rails we welcome an all-star quintet of London’s finest contemporary jazz musicians as they pay tribute to the late, great Polish jazz musician and composer Tomasz Stańko.

There are traces of Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman in Stanko’s playing but the moods created by his compositions are distinctly European, and lead the listener down an alternative path. Stańko’s influence goes on, with the huge legacy of recordings and writing recently added to by the posthumous release of the excellent “September Night” on ECM.

Tomasz Stańko first brought his eloquent and lyrical style to European jazz in the 1960s, gaining international renown. His career entered a majestic second phase in the 1990s, with ten standout albums following over the next two decades. His meditative, brooding sound was instantly recognisable. ‘Nobody,’ wrote The Guardian, ‘holds a single, long-blown trumpet note like Stańko’.

For this tribute trumpeter Chris Batchelor has gathered an all-star band who have been playing together for years in various combinations. Mark Lockheart, Liam Noble, Dave Whitford and Jay Davis are highly sensitive to Stańko’s music, both within set structures and also in more improvisational settings, and they revel in spontaneously stretching and developing the material.

The band will feature a wide range of Stańko’s compositions - free ballads, waltzes, grooves, with pieces taken from early albums like Balladyna through to later ECM records such as From The Green Hill, Dark Eyes, Litania and Leosia, as well as some pieces written for film and theatre.

Stańko’s music is atmospheric, cinematic, melodic and above all accessible. He said “To me, the ideal composition is one that speaks to everyone. The sophisticated listener will catch the nuances, while a different listener will come to my concerts because he likes my hat.”