This might be an odd choice for a first entry on Stanko. The group is a unique assemblage: trumpet, bass clarinet, drums, bass, violin, bandoneon. The result can only be described as a hybrid of Piazzola milongas, Dvorak quartets, and Gil Evans-era Miles, with a small dash of Mingus Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. In fact, this album is an extended meditation on breath control, and not just from Stanko's trumpet and Jon Surman's clarinet, but strangely also Dino Saluzzi's bandoneon... and stranger still Michelle Makarski's violin. Saluzzi's double take on Komeda's "Litania," played as a tango porteno, clearly positions both Stanko and Saluzzi on an ex-centric border of jazz tradition, itself ex-centric. Perhaps this double-crossed double-exile is why it all sounds so comforting and foreign at the same time. Note the opening phrase on "Domino": the impossibility of separating trumpet, bandoneon, and violin (each of which should be so different in timbre from the others) all playing in unison.
Suggested Wine Pairing: A difficult choice indeed, but I would go with an Ocaso, Malbec, 2005, Mendoza Argentina. The Argentina connection, of course, but one that drives the idiosynchracies of the malbec to a place that feels warm, like home.
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