Stańko & Księżyk/Desperado, Series Editor's Preface

Tomasz Stańko (1942–2018) was one of the major jazz trumpeters in the second half of the twentieth century, through into the first two decades of the twenty-first. This autobiography is not a conventional ‘as told to’ book, but a dynamic and evolving series of conversations with the journalist and music critic Rafał Księżyk between July 2008 and May 2009. Consequently, although it takes a roughly chronological route through Stańko’s life and career, it strays into many of the highways and byways of a real conversation. From it, we learn more about Stańko’s life and conditions and the background to his career than we might from a more conventional text.