The New Yorker praised Tomasz Stańko as "one of the most original and creative jazz trumpet players in the world". While critics often compare him to Miles Davis and Chat Baker and his "Suspended Night" album to the legendary "Kind of Blue", Tomasz Stańko has developed his own unique artistic language. The lyrical, piercing tone of his trumpet, magical and mesmerizing mood of his music, and extraordinary charisma of his leadership and personality are the cornerstones of Tomasz Stanko's mystique.

He debuted at the end of the 1950s in Krakow. Joachim Ernst Berendt considered him the first free-jazz trumpeter in Europe. In the 1960s Stanko joined Krzysztof Komeda's quintet, soon became its mainstay, and recorded with it a masterpiece of European jazz, LP Astigmatic.
In the early 1970s, at the helm of Tomasz Stanko Quintet, he came to the forefront of the free jazz scene and was featured at major European festivals. His subsequent projects reinforced this stature: Unit with Polish pianist Adam Makowicz, and quartet co-led with Norwegian drummer Edward Vesala that in 1975 attracted attention of ECM's Manfred Eicher. Stanko's ECM debut, Balladyna, has become a legend on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. In the 1980s Stanko was enlisted by Cecil Taylor to his line-ups, and led his own C.O.C.X. and Freelectronic bands that incorporated reggae, Latino, electronic, and rap inspirations.

The 1990s saw Stanko's return to the jazz summit and another phase of his liaison with ECM label. His new quartet featuring pianist Bobo Stenson, bassist Anders Jormin, and drummer Tony Oxley was hailed as the best jazz group of the decade - a rare top rating of Leosia album in the Penguin Jazz Guide. Released in 1997 Litania, a tribute to the music of Krzysztof Komeda, has became his first global bestseller. The subsequent Stańko's ECM releases Soul of Things and Suspended Night recorded with a young Polish quartet at the beginning of the new century have brought him to the orbit of the American market, where he has been touring regularly ever since. In 2002 he was the first winner of the European Jazz Prize awarded in Vienna, two years later in Poland he was honoured with a high state decoration, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Rebirth of Poland.

For eight years now Tomasz Stańko has been regularly ranked among the world's top ten jazz trumpeters in the prestigious annual Down Beat Magazine Poll. The same poll listed him among the world’s top jazz composers as well. Stańko as a leader has released 37 albums, has also composed music for numerous films and theatrical productions. He is a NYC Manhattan resident since 2008. His recent CD, Dark Eyes, was recorded in 2009 with a new quintet of young Scandinavian talent. He currently works also with New York City musicians, such as Lee Konitz and Craig Taborn. In 2010 in Poland Stanko's autobiography Desperado was published and as best selling as his records. In 2011 The Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest complex of museums and educational and research centres, published six-CD collection Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology, which is concluded with Tomasz Stańko's composition Suspended Night Variation VIII, an honour bestowed on a very few non-US artists. In the same year President of Poland Mr. Bronisław Komorowski awarded Tomasz Stańko Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Rebirth of Poland.