THE SHORT STORY POLISH JAZZ 1945-1999.

by Cezary Lerski, All rights reserved, unauthorized use is not allowed.

1940s - 1950s

After 1945 and the Yalta Conference, like the rest of Eastern and Central Europe, Poland fell to Russian communist rule. Jazz music was outlawed as the music of the enemy, and banned along with modern art, decent toilet paper and the right to travel abroad. Young people that were often against the regime rediscovered jazz. The music was said to go into "the catacombs." Jazz could only be played at private homes and parties. One band came to dominate the hidden landscape of the Polish jazz scene. The name of this group was Melomani. Melomani consisted of a wide array of ever-changing musicians that played the sort of music that they thought was jazz. The quality of the music did not compare to Western European or American standards at the time. But that did not matter for Melomani's fans. They embraced it because it was illegitimate, revolutionary, banned by authorities, and because it was theirs. There was no jazz music on the Polish radio, no jazz records in the stores, no books and no sheet music for sale. The only way to access the real thing was to tune a radio to Willis Conover programs on the Voice of America. So that’s what they did--and they listened to Conover’s American drawl, dreaming and hoping for more freedom. After Stalin's death in 1953, it became more acceptable to play and listen to jazz. The first legal jazz gathering took place in Krakow on November 1st, 1954, leading to a tradition of jazz festivals, magazines and jazz clubs in Poland that continues to this day. But even when validated by the rulers of Poland, Jazz has remained an intellectual escape from communism and totalitarianism - to be a jazz-lover meant to subconsciously against the system.

1960s

Moving into the 1960s, Polish jazz became more diverse, more sophisticated and more stylish. It evolved into three basic styles: Dixieland (traditional), straight-ahead (mainstream), and avant-garde (free). Many bands played their own version of "the original New Orleans style" of jazz, basically mimicking the Dixieland revival that had taken place earlier in Western Europe. It is difficult to clearly mark the distinction between mainstream and avant-garde jazz in the Polish jazz of the 1960s and 1970s; too many musicians walked the fine line between the two. The most famous players of that era, Komeda, Kurylewicz, Trzaskowski and “Dudus” Matuszkiewicz were all former Melomani musicians. During this time, Krzysztof Komeda released his album Astigmatic, the daring, visionary and collaborative work that changed not only Polish jazz, but also European jazz as we know it today. In 1962, a young trumpet player called Tomasz Stańko created the Jazz Darings, later described by jazz critic J.E. Berndt as the "first European free jazz combo", a musical group that was responding to the free jazz concepts grandfathered in by John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.

1970s

Created in 1968, the Studio Jazzowe Polskiego Radia was a venue and a workshop for musicians and composers. It would be virtually impossible to find any important Polish jazz composer or soloist who at one time or another in their career had not been involved with the Studio. The space created a collaborative collective consciousness for jazz. Without it and its leader, Jan “Ptaszyn” Wróblewski, Polish jazz would not be the same. The 70’s created some jazz superheroes: In 1973, Michał Urbaniak released the groundbreaking album Fusion. This LP, recorded and released in the USA, very accurately captured Urbaniak’s innovative artistic personality: straight-ahead expression paired with Slavic ingenuousness, musical eclectics, contemporary articulation and the influence of Polish folk music, all flawlessly incorporated into the vocabulary of American jazz. Similar rave reviews were often written about another giant of Polish jazz, Zbigniew Namysłowski. The quote from Willis Conover himself says enough: "When I first visited Poland, I was quite unprepared to hear Polish musicians at so high level. Namysłowskii was clearly the best. He honors 3 traditions, of jazz, of Polish, and of himself." Since the late 60’s and during the 70’s, Tomasz Stańko has been exploring different shades of free jazz; especially successfully with his Quintet. After the end of his legendary Quintet, Stańko continued his career, focusing his interest on free jazz, fusion, electronica, solo projects; and later on during his tenure at ECM, re-defining the concept of jazz quartet established by Miles Davis in the 1960's. Until his death in 2018, Stańko has remained one of the most important, successful and creative jazz musicians in Europe and in the world.

1980s - 1990s

Starting in the late 1970s, Polish jazz’s focus began to shift. In the early 80s, the rebellious “Young Power" movement - with composer and flutist Krzysztof Popek at the helm - began questioning existing hierarchies of Polish Jazz, musical styles and languages, and brought many new artistically diverse influences. As the Young Power musicians have blended into the Polish Jazz music scene over the time, they brought in a creative fire that had been somehow previously lost. And the Polish Jazz matured, enlarged and grew even more.

History repeated itself again in the next decade when even "Younger Power” emerged as the most creative stream of Polish jazz of the 1990s. They called their music "jass” to distinguish themselves from conventional "jazz” music. Although sometimes very unorthodox, jass remained improvised music, based on the same doctrine and conventions essential to jazz.

The band "Miłość” (Love) was a superstar of the jass movement and its leading force. Four musicians have emerged from the band and after the break out of the band in 2002, they have pursued solo careers: double bass player and guitarist Ryszard Tymon Tymański; pianist Leszek Możdżer, and saxophone players Mikołaj Trzaska and Maciej Sikała. Although stylistically very different, all alumni of Miłość significantly enriched and influenced Polish Jazz scene in the next decades.

Today

Going into the 3rd decade of the 21st century, Polish jazz is a mature but evolving musical form. Born as the soundtrack of radicals, it is above all an art form that explores places, concepts and emotions previously unknown.

Welcome to the Polish Jazz!

For more about history of Polish Jazz please read “Polish Jazz - Freedom at Last”