The cooperation with Tomasz Stańko was officially launched between 1999 and 2000, and it was preceded by occasional concert collaborations between Stańko and Wasilewski. The Simple Acoustic Trio had gained a mentor in Stańko and cooperated with him as a working band. This cooperation soon lead to recording with one of the world’s leading labels, the Munich-based ECM.
Together with Stańko they recorded three albums with the ECM: Soul of Things (2002), Suspended Night (2004) and Lontano (2006). They also made three concert tours across the US, performing in some of America’s best jazz stages: Blues Alley in Washington, Merkin Hall and Birdland in New York. Stańko and the trio also played at the San Francisco Jazz Festival and the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle.
Although the musicians were very actively engaged in making music together, and their career was gaining speed, the actual name Simple Acoustic Trio was less and less heard of. The last album they recorded under the old name was Habanera, released by the Not Two Records label in Kraków in May, 2000.
The musicians would return to the stage as an independent trio five years later, and it was a splendid beginning. The album Trio was once again recorded by ECM and after since its release in 2005, four more albums followed: January (2008), Faithfull (2011), Spark Of Life (2014), and Live (2018), all of which were also released by ECM. Faithfull gained a double platinum record status and it was a huge artistic success.
Since their very beginnings, the group has been building its position with numerous prizes, among them the many Fryderyk Awards of the Polish Music Academy. In 2010, the Marcin Wasilewski Trio also won the annual readers’ poll of the Jazz Forum magazine for the Best Acoustic Formation in Poland, gaining nearly twice as many votes as the Tomasz Stańko quintet.
Over the 20 years of their activity on the music scene, the Marcin Wasilewski Trio has cooperated with numerous internationally acclaimed musicians both individually and as a band. They performed with Tomasz Szukalski, Piotr Wojtasik, Michał Urbaniak, Janusz Muniak and Henryk Miśkiewicz, and also participated in international projects with stars of the international jazz scene, such as: Dino Saluzzi, Palle Danielson, Jon Christensen, Arild Andersen, Bernt Rosengren, John Surman, Bobo Stenson, Manu Katche, Gianluigi Trovesi, Jan Garbarek, Arthur Blythe and Joe Lovano. The frontman Marcin Wasilewski – a pianist recognised not just by jazz fans – was voted ‘rising star’ of jazz pianism by renowned jazz experts and critics in the poll of the prestigious American jazz magazine Down Beat in 2005, while in Poland he is a four-time winner of the Fryderyk award for Jazz Musician of the Year (2005, 2009, 2012, 2015), and the Fryderyk statuette for Jazz Album of the Year along with his trio (2001, 2005, 2009, 2015). This makes Marcin Wasilewski the most award-winning jazz musician in Poland after Tomasz Stańko. As Dionizy Piątkowski wrote about them on Era Jazzu portal:
The Marcin Wasilewski Trio is the most important acoustic jazz band in Europe today, capable of an outstanding performance whether in partnership with soloists and other bands, or as a standard acoustic trio – without succumbing to any passing fashions and moods. Marcin Wasilewski is a virtuoso with impeccable, subtle technique, a composer aiming far beyond the usual jazz scheme. The drummer Michał Miśkiewicz is a syncopation magician pulsating with rhythmic associations and emotions. The bassist Sławomir Kurkiewicz subtly builds up the mood with every note, creating pathos with precisely selected sounds. The Marcin Wasilewski Trio is a model for contemporary jazz and music that already defies this type of precise classification. The model they provide can be matched only by the very best.