Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Krzysztof Komeda was born Krzysztof Trzciński on April 27, 1931 in Poznań, Poland and grew up in Częstochowa and Ostrów Wielkopolski. He took music lessons from early childhood and became a member of the Poznań conservatorium at the age of eight, but World War II thwarted his plans. He explored the theory of music, and learned to play piano during this period.

While attending the Liceum for Boys, where he graduated from in 1950, he participated in the Music and Poetry Club. After high school he entered the Medical Academy in Poznań to study medicine. He finished his six-year-long studies and obtained a medical doctor diploma in 1956. He chose to specialize as a head and neck surgeon.

Komeda was interested in light and dance music and met Witold Kujawski, a graduate of the same school and already a well-known swinging bass player. He introduced him to jazz and took him to Kraków where the romantic period of Polish jazz, called the catacombs, was in the spotlight. Jam sessions with famous musicians as Matuszkiewicz, Borowiec, Walasek, and Kujawski took place in Witold’s legendary small apartment in Kraków.

Fascinated with be-bop performed by Andrzej Trzaskowski, his fascination with jazz and the friendship with famous musicians strengthened his connections with the music. He worked for some time with the first, postwar, pioneer Polish jazz band called Melomani. Later, he played with various pop groups, a Dixieland band before turning his attention to modern jazz and the creation of the Komeda Sextet.

Trzciński used the stage name ‘Komeda’ for the first time to protect his medical profession from the scutiny of those of Polish society  who regarded jazz as a cheap suspicious music of night clubs. The sextet became the first Polish jazz group playing modern jazz, and its pioneering performances opened the way for jazz in Poland. He played jazz that related to European traditions and which was the synthesis of the two most popular groups at that time: The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet.

He would go on to tour Moscow, Grenoble,  Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Prague, Blend, Koenigsberg, Bulgaria and both West and East Germany. He was a part of a show called Jazz and Poetry, began scoring films and overall, Komeda composed more than 70 soundtracks. While staying in Los Angeles, California in 1968 he composed the film music for Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and Kulik’s The Riot.

In 1968, in Los Angeles, while having a friendly rough-and-tumble with writer Marek Hłasko he was pushed over an escarpment and suffered a haematoma of the brain. Medical treatment in the US hospital did not save his life. After being transported home to Poland in a coma and in a terminal state. Pianst  Krzysztof Komeda, who is credited with creating an original style, often described as the Polish school of jazz, hung on until passing away on April 23, 1969 at the age of 37.

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