Piotr Schmidt Quartet feat. Wojciech Niedziela - Tribute To Tomasz Stańko

This is one of the top 10 jazz albums 2018! 

Wulf Muller (Okeh Records - Sony Music Germany) 

The music is heart-wrenching, melancholic, full of sorrow and… beauty.

Paweł Brodowski, head editor of Jazz Forum (Europe Jazz Network, February 2019) 

While "Saxesful" was Piotr's breakthrough album, this disc, recorded with the quartet pure, is his masterpiece.

prof. Maciej Lewenstein

Tribute to Tomasz Stańko develops the musical ideas first heard in Piotr Schmidt’s earlier collaboration with Wojciech Niedziela, the album Dark Morning; ideas which bring to mind a sonic landscape familiar from ECM productions: painted with darker hues, infused with feelings and sensations, and firmly rooted in the European approach to rhythm and harmony. It is a landscape whose precursor in Poland was Tomasz Stańko. 

Marek Romański, Jazz Forum 01-02 / 2019

Those fragments in which the narrative focuses around Niedziela's subtle piano overpower the listener with their beauty and tranquility, like the loveliest ballads.​

Adam Domagała (JazzPress / Zdzazzemlzej) 

There rushes through this album an incredibly jazzy gust and glow of Stańko’s music, but this tribute isn’t imitative: it’s the sophisticated esthetics of modern jazz (...) One of the most important publications of Polish jazz.

Dionizy Piątkowski (Era Jazzu)

A wonderful homage to the master of the trumpet. This may become Poland’s jazz album of 2018!

Michał Dybaczewski (Kurier Lubelski)  

I'm thrilled by the beauty of this music. 

Marek Bania (Jazz TV) 

Overall this is a wonderfully executed and cleverly planned piece of music, which achieves the ambitious goal assigned to it in full. It is also a textbook example of what "tribute" albums should sound like, as well as a wonderful example of a bridge over a chasm of the infamous generation gap, which enables a smooth transition of the heritage from one generation to another. Polish Jazz at its best!

prof. Adam Baruch (The Soundtrack Of My Life) 

The outstanding trumpeter Piotr Schmidt, accompanied by the superlative pianist Wojciech Niedziela, and the sensational RGG Trio’s bassist Maciej Garbowski and drummer Krzysztof Gradziuk, is back with a new project: Tribute to Tomasz Stańko, paying homage to the giant of Polish jazz who died on 29th of July 2018. 

Piotr Schmidt Quartet’s newest album, Tribute to Tomasz Stańko, launched in Gliwice on 7 December 2018. The album has been recorded with the participation of one of Poland’s best jazz pianists, Wojciech Niedziela, and the renowned RGG Trio’s bassist Maciej Garbowski and drummer Krzysztof Gradziuk. Schmidt and Niedziela have collaborated since 2016 and recorded their first joint duo album - Dark Morning in 2017 published in September that year by SJRecords. Their next project, as Piotr Schmidt Quartet - together with Garbowski & Gradziuk was Saxesful - full of the biggest stars of Polish Jazz Saxophone. Tribute To Tomasz Stańko is an homage to the influential artist who died on 29th July 2018 and, in Piotr Schmidt’s words, a thanks for inspiration and intense emotions which Stańko’s music provided over the years.

Piotr Schmidt - trumpet

Wojciech Niedziela - grandpiano

Maciej Garbowski - doublebass

Krzysztof Gradziuk - drums

Produced by Piotr Schmidt

Music production: Piotr Schmidt, Maciej Stach

Cover painting: Tomasz Olszewski

Cover design: Tomasz Olszewski

Inside photos: Aleksandra Kasztalska

Mixed and mastered by Maciej Stach in MaqRecordsStudio, Wojkowice

Sound Engineer: Jan Smoczyńki, Grzegorz Łojowski

Recorded in June 2018 in Tokarnia Music Production Studio in Nieporęt and in October 2018 in Cavatina Studio in Bielsko Biała. 

First, a year ago, the album came out in digital form; now this exquisite music has been reissued on black vinyl: the phenomenal album “Tribute to Tomasz Stańko” by the great trumpeter, composer and band leader Piotr Schmidt and his quartet (Wojciech Niedziela – piano, Maciej Garbowski – double bass and Krzysztof Gradziuk – drums).
What amazes the most is the uncanny recreation of the aural atmosphere so typical of the late lamented giant of jazz, an aesthetics familiar to fans of ECM recordings, and yet this tribute is formally free: no copycat music. Schmidt & Co. have created something uniquely theirs on the foundations of Stańko’s legacy. The leader knows all there is to know about the jazz trumpet (and perhaps more), and is a natural heir to the great Polish school of jazz trumpet. In our age of the vinyl renaissance this album is a perfect entry point into the world of jazz for those who are new to it.
This is beautiful, heartfelt music and it is no wonder that the album is hailed as one of the most important releases of the recent years.
Highly recommended,

Piotr Iwicki​, Tygodnik Niedziela (01.10.2020)