December Avenue is the second album by the New York Quartet of Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, four years after the double album Wisława. It was also his last record for ECM, the label he had recorded for since Balladyna in 1976, before his death in July 2018. The mood is mostly nocturnal and slow, built on Stanko's melancholic themes and his grainy, vibrato-free tone, with open forms that leave the band room to improvise.
The quartet brings together musicians from several places. David Virelles, born in Cuba, is on piano and Gerald Cleaver, from Detroit, on drums. The new member is bassist Reuben Rogers, from the Virgin Islands, known to ECM listeners through his work with Charles Lloyd. He replaced Thomas Morgan, who had played on Wisława. The album was recorded in June 2016 at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, in the south of France, with Gérard de Haro engineering and Manfred Eicher producing.
Nine of the twelve pieces are Stanko's, and three short tracks are group improvisations credited to all four players. The opener Cloud starts with Virelles alone, a murky chord and a three-note arpeggio, before the trumpet states the theme. The tempo is so slow, and the notes so widely spaced, that the music seems always about to stop. The title track breaks the stillness, with the rhythm section swinging hard behind the trumpet. The Street of Crocodiles takes its name from the book of stories by Bruno Schulz, and sets Stanko against arco bass and a quiet, sensitive response from Virelles.
The critics read it as a worthy follow-up. Reviewing it in The Guardian, John Fordham called it "just as exquisite an exercise in haunting tone-poetry, occasionally pierced by urgent avant-swing." In JazzTimes, Thomas Conrad wrote that it "reaches layers within modern consciousness where even Stanko has not been." Brian Marley in London Jazz News praised the empathy of the playing, singling out the slow Ballad for Bruno Schulz for Stanko's distinctive timbre.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2532, first released on 31 March 2017, in a jewel case with a 12-page booklet.
