HANSEN: The music critic Geoffrey Himes wrote that you pioneered a distinctly Polish brand of jazz. What does that mean? What's Polish jazz?Mr. STANKO: This is question not for myself. I don't know exactly, because I play this music. I think it's kind of melancholic, what maybe it's coming from our climate, our light in our country, and this melancholy may be a little bit also in the Chopin music, this kind of romantic, melancholic atmosphere, mood.
HANSEN: So it does reflect sort of the culture. Politically, however, how difficult was it to play jazz? Because Poland has gone through so much in the last 50 years.
Mr. STANKO: Yeah. It was - in the '50s, it was quite difficult, even was illegal. But in my times, '60s, it was quite possible, even fashionable and every film director, actors, Polanski and this society, was really into the jazz music, and we were kind of kings in the arts society.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Do you think there's a difference between the way jazz is developing here in the United States and the direction it's going in Europe?
Mr. STANKO: Probably yes, because had war, you know, and jazz was much shorter period in Europe, because war destroyed completely everything. Like you remember, you said Django Reinhart was in France before the war, but after that, you know, everything start from the beginning.
― budo jeru, Sunday, 7 January 2018 23:39 (six years ago) link