這一篇譯文我前前後後修了很久。
紐時的記者功力真不是蓋的，文中用了很多雙關字，我想破頭也不知道要如何能夠很淋漓盡至地翻出來，只能慚愧地說功力太差。
在此除了譯文，亦將原文POST出來。期盼各位看倌不吝指正，我會非常非常非常感激！
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全文翻譯如下：
標題：由爵士樂，聽見自由之聲
作著：Nate Chinen
日期：2006.11.06
出處：紐約時報
對於這位被歐洲人譽為眾多最具即興創作才華音樂家之一的小喇叭手湯瑪士‧史坦可而言，從初次聽到爵士樂的那天起，爵士樂帶給他的意義，五十多年來如一日。
『這個訊息叫作自由，』他最近在曼哈頓中城一家旅館房間裡說。『對我這樣一個一直住在共產國家的波蘭人來說，』他用不甚流利的英文說著，『爵士樂是西方文化、自由、以及這種不同的生活方式的同義字。』
64歲的史坦可用著了火般的速度說話，他橢圓型的臉上架著方格花紋的眼鏡，活像一個歷經風霜但卻不見歲月痕跡的爵士樂迷，站在某些角度上來說，說他是個爵士樂迷也當之無愧。他從年輕時就帶領一支受到自由爵士樂派Ornette Coleman所啟發的一流歐洲樂團。而他的獨奏生涯也一直是處在未公開的狀態，一直到十年前左右，在德國ECM發行一批抒情唱片，在歐洲他的家鄉及美國引起轟動，打響了他的知名度。
目前住在華沙的史坦可先生，在五年裡四度跨美洲十二個城市的旅途中，中途一站停留在紐約。在旅館對面的波蘭領事館為他辦了一個接待會，希望他能獨奏，然後再和古典樂手一起演奏室內樂。
『在波蘭文化中，他的地位舉足輕重，』總領事克里茲多夫‧卡斯普斯基補充說道，他早是在六○年代的學生時期，就在科拉科夫（譯按：位於波蘭南部之城市）聽到史坦可先生的音樂。
史坦可先生和多數同年代的東歐人一樣，是經由美國的廣播節目及國務院之旅才得知爵士樂。部份原因也是因為美國政府的包裝方式，才會讓音樂成為自由之聲的化身。史坦可先生回憶起，他是在1958年的旅途中見到代夫‧布魯貝克(Dave Brubeck)（註一）
1958年，在一次與Down Beat 雜誌的會唔中，雜誌中引述了歷史學家Penny M VonEschen在她的書『Satchmo（註二）炸毀世界：爵士大使玩弄（註三冷戰）中的話：布魯貝克先生是這麼描述這次的旅程的：『只要歐洲的獨裁政權存在，爵士樂就會逍遙法外，』他說，『而且只要這些國家重獲自由，爵士樂絕對會跟著響起。』他補上一句說，『自由這個字在波蘭是在跟我們有關聯的每個人嘴裡。』
史坦可先生說，他猶記得那種可以說是存在潛意識中的渴望，在他最新的專輯Lontano中甚至都還找得到。
“Lontano”是他以組曲的方式所作的一張令人牽繞心頭、難以忘懷的專輯，而他的小喇叭就像串起組曲的那條線。但這張專輯比上一張要更不定安，一般咸認這張專輯受到他先前那些尋求自由的錄音的啟發，比之前的作品都更前衛。
『我的確是回到過去，回到即興創作音樂，』史坦可先生說，『不過那正對是我的心境。這就是我之所以愛音樂的原因，這種敍事方式，也許就像福克納（註四）的文學創作方式。』
“Lontano”中惟一非原創的曲子“Kattorna”，是整張專輯中最輕快活潑的一首，最接近史坦可先生當下這次四重奏巡迴組曲的曲風。在波蘭領事館接待完後的幾個晚上，音樂家們在麻省劍橋的一家Regattabar爵士俱樂部午夜場中，演奏這首曲子。
『我們以不同的現場演奏方式來詮釋這首曲子，』史坦可先生在紐約時說，在Regattabar俱樂部他以更加強的精力的來傳達他的觀點，迴異於在“Lontano”中
『 這是我尋根的方式：找到靈感，而不是聲音。』史坦可先生說。『找到靈感，他重覆著，『但是是用我的方法，我的語言。』較中規中矩的手法。
譯註一：代夫‧布魯貝克(Dave Brubeck)：鋼琴爵士樂手
譯註二：Satchmo為路易士‧阿姆斯壯的外號
譯註三：原書名為Satchmo Blows Up the World：Jazz Ambassador Play the Cold War，Play有『吹奏』之意，亦有『玩弄』戲謔之意，在此譯者以為作者用意在後者，故翻成『玩弄』。
譯註四：William Faulkner，美國小說家，1949年諾貝爾文學獎獲得者，他作品最大的外在特點是綿延婉轉、結構極為繁複的長句子和反復斟酌推敲後選取的精巧辭彙，他和風格簡潔明瞭、乾脆利落的海明威是兩個極端。（以上資料來自維基百科）
A Message Of Freedom Through Jazz
By Nate Chinen
NEW YORK – For the trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, one of the most acclaimed Improvising musicians in Europe, the significance of jazz was unmistakable the first time he heard it more than 50 years ago.
“The message was freedom,” he said recently in a Midtown Manhattan hotel room. “For me, as a Polish who was living in Communist country,” he continued in his slightly broken English, “jazz was synonym of western culture, of freedom, of this different style of life.”
Speaking in a rapid-fire cadence, checkered-framed glasses accenting his oval face, the 64-year-old Mr. Stanko resembled a weathered but ageless hipster, which in some ways he is. As a young man, he led one of the first European bands inspired by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman. His solo career was an underground affair until about a decade ago, when a new batch of lyrical albums for the German label ECM sparked a surge in recognition at home in Europe and in the United States.
Mr. Stnako, who lives in Warsaw, was in New York between stops on a 12-city tour, his fourth cross-country American trek in five years. He was expected shortly at a reception organized by the Polish Consulate, across from his hotel; he would play solo, then with classical musicians on a chamber composition.
“he is one of the greatest figures of Polish culture,” the consul general, Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk, would later proclaim, adding that he had first heard Mr. Stanko as a student in Krakow in the 1960’s.
Like most Eastern Europeans of his generation, Mr. Stanko encountered jazz through Voice of America broadcasts and State Department tours; the music Registered as a soundtrack of freedom partly because it was packaged that way by the United States government. Mr. Stanko recalled seeing Dave Brubeck in a 1958 tour.
In a 1958 interview in Down Beat magazine cited by the historian Penny M. VonEschen in her book “Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War,” Mr. Brubeck described that tour: “Whenever here was a dictatorship in Europe, jazz was outlawed,” he said. “And whenever freedom returned to those countries, the playing of jazz inevitable accompanied it.” In Poland, he added, the word freedom “was in the mouths of everybody we had anything to do with.”
Mr. Stanko said he still remembered that sort of yearning, which could be said to exist, on a subconscious level, even on “Lontano,” his latest album.
“Lontano” is a haunting, suite like effort, with Mr. Stanko’s trumpet as the running thread. But it is more restless than its predecessors; often it assumes an avant-garde elasticity evocative of Mr. Stanko’s earlier, freedom-seeking recordings.
“it’s true that I come back to the past, to improvised music,” Mr. Stanko said. “but exactly my mood. This is what I really love in music, you know, this kind of narration, like maybe what in literature Faulkner has.”
“Kattorna,” the only nonoriginal piece on “Lontano,” is the jauntiest track on the album and has served as a set closer for Mr. Stanko’s quartet on its current tour. The musicians played it during their late show at the Regattabar, a jazz club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a couple of nights after the Polish Consulate reception.
“we play this music different live,” Mr. Stanko had said in New York, and the Regattabar set illustrated his point, conveying an energy more emphatic but less experimental than on “Lontano.”
“this is my way to follow roots: go get ideas, not sound,” Mr. Stanko said. “To get ideas,” he reiterated, “but in my way. In my language.”
