Komeda; A Private Life in Jazz; Grzebałkowska

Author

Magdalena Grzebałkowska [+–]

Journalist and Author

A history graduate of the University of Gdańsk, Magdalena Grzebałkowska is a multi-award-winning journalist and author of four books of non-fiction. In addition to her biography of Krzysztof Komeda, she has also written best-selling biographies of the Polish poet-priest, Jan Twardowski; and the Beksińskis, (artist father, Zdzisław, and music journalist-son, Tomasz). Her book of reportage on the Polish experience of the Reclaimed Territories and the repatriation of Poles following the Second World War: 1945: War and Peace (2015) won the Newsweek Prize and the Nike Literary Award (audience’s choice).
Magdalena Grzebałkowska is a popular speaker at the country’s many book festivals and makes frequent appearances in the Polish media.

Translated by

Halina Maria Boniszewska [+–]

Halina Maria Boniszewska was born in the UK to Polish parents. She studied at the universities of London, Oxford and Warwick, as well as the Intermediate Department at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She has translated (from Polish into English) Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz by Magdalena Grzebałkowska (Equinox, 2020), and Desperado: An Autobiography by Tomasz Stańko as told to Rafał Księżyk (Equinox, 2022). She has also translated a chapter from Ewa Winnicka’s Angole which has appeared in A Tale of Two Londons: Stories from a Fractured City, ed. Claire Armitstead, (OR Books) and Krystian Brodacki’s chapter on Polish Jazz in History of European Jazz (Equinox, 2018). In 2016 she translated a musical for International Catholic Youth Day in Krakow, based on the life and works of cleric and poet, Edmund Bojanowski. She is a former student of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Nominated for the 2021 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research

Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz is the biography of Krzysztof (Trzciński) Komeda (1931-1969), composer of no fewer than 40 soundtracks, including film scores to all of Roman Polański’s early films such as Knife in the Water and Rosemary’s Baby; and a revered figure in the world of jazz, which regards his record, Astigmatic (released in 1966), as a key album in the history of European jazz.

This biography of Komeda, originally published in Polish by Znak in 2018, is the first to be published in the English language and not only traces Komeda’s life, but also the development of Polish jazz during this period. It explores how this arose in large part out of a need for self-expression and personal freedom during a repressive period of Soviet communist dominance.

The book is full of interviews between the biographer and people who worked with and knew Krzysztof Komeda personally, and, while thoroughly-grounded in primary sources, it is written in a playful, questioning, engaging style.

Series: Popular Music History

Prelims

Translator’s Note [+–] xiii

Halina Maria Boniszewska

Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz is the biography of Krzysztof (Trzciński) Komeda (1931-1969), composer of no fewer than 40 soundtracks, including film scores to all of Roman Polański’s early films such as Knife in the Water and Rosemary’s Baby ; and a revered figure in the world of jazz, which regards his record, Astigmatic (released in 1966), as a key album in the history of European jazz. This biography of Komeda, originally published in Polish by Znak in 2018, is the first to be published in the English language and not only traces Komeda’s life, but also the development of Polish jazz during this period. It explores how this arose in large part out of a need for self-expression and personal freedom during a repressive period of Soviet communist dominance. The book is full of interviews between the biographer and people who worked with and knew Krzysztof Komeda personally, and, while thoroughly-grounded in primary sources, it is written in a playful, questioning, engaging style.

Author’s Acknowledgements [+–] ix

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Chapter 1

The First Festival of the Sweater Bands [+–] 1-16

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

An account of the legendary First National Polish Jazz Festival in Sopot in 1956, inspired largely by jazz impresario, Leopold Tyrmand, who has taken advantage of the political ‘thaw’ in communist Poland to persuade the authorities that jazz is an asset to the nation. Komeda’s Sextet is an overnight success.

Chapter 2

Thirty-eight Years to Go … [+–] 17-29

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

An account of Krzysztof ‘Komeda’ Trzciński’s upbringing and education until the age of 14, from his birthplace in Poznań in 1931 to Częstochowa, through the war years of Nazi occupation, during which he contracts polio and experiences evacuation. A bomb destroys their home. The origin of his stage name, ‘Komeda’, is revealed.

Chapter 3

Twenty-three Years to Go … [+–] 30-37

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

The Trzcińskis briefly move to Wałbrzych where, aged 14, Krzysztof listens to western radio stations. Inspired by Leopold Tyrmand, the first YMCA jazz clubs appear in Poland; the first post-war jazz concert takes place in Warsaw in 1947; and jazz appears in the cinema in Sun Valley Serenade.

Chapter 4

Twenty-one Years to Go … [+–] 38-58

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Now in Ostrów Wielkopolski, 18-year-old Komeda sets up his first band, Carioca. Though dreamy and academically-unfocused, Komeda is visionary, driven and daring with his music, nominally playing folk and dance music, while slipping in ‘degenerate western jazz’ pieces past the communist censors, who insist on socialist realism in the arts.

Chapter 5

Nineteen Years to Go … [+–] 59-76

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Now a medical student in Poznań, Komeda spends his spare time conducting the student choir and (on Witold Kujawski’s insistence) his holidays in Kraków during the ‘Catacomb period’, playing jazz in secret in the homes of Kraków’s jazz-loving literary elite, along with Trzaskowski, Kurylewicz, Matuszkiewicz and others.

Chapter 6

Seventeen Years to Go … [+–] 77-156

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Following Stalin’s death in 1953, the communist authorities relax their emphasis on socialist realism. Komeda takes part in the first Kraków Zaduszki Jazz Festival of 1954 and the culturally ground-breaking First National Jazz Festival of 1956 in Sopot. He plays with Melomani (the first post-war Polish jazz band) and forms the Komeda Sextet (the first modern jazz band in Poland).

Chapter 7

Twelve Years to Go … [+–] 157-189

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Komeda gives up medicine and, along with his manager-girlfriend, Zofia, moves to Kraków, where he becomes the star turn at the cabaret-jazz cellar, Piwnica pod Baranami. He meets Dave Brubeck during the cultural ambassador’s 1958 tour of Poland and takes part in the first Warsaw Jazz Jamboree in 1958. He starts working on film music for Roman Polański.

Chapter 8

Eleven Years to Go … [+–] 190-209

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Now regarded by the communist authorities as a valuable showcase, Komeda and the Polish jazz and film set are given media attention, a little funding and a free jazz camping holiday in the mountains of Zakopane. Komeda begins his film collaboration with Andrzej Wajda and Jerzy Skolimowski.

Chapter 9

Ten Years to Go … [+–] 210-253

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Komeda moves to Warsaw, now the centre of Polish jazz. He plays in Stodoła and Hybrydy, where he gives Urszula Dudziak her first major gig. Roman ‘Gucio’ Dyląg explains how Komeda composed outlines for his film music and encouraged each performer to improvise within these outlines to the scenes in each film.

Chapter 10

Seven Years to Go … [+–] 254-327

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Komeda plays in Sweden and Denmark with Dyląg and Wróblewski, composes third stream music for Jazz Jamboree 1962 and plays at Jazz Jamboree 1963 with Urbaniak, Suzin and Milian. He head-hunts Tomasz Stańko. Excerpts from Suzin’s diaries and conversations with Stańko reveal how Komeda empowered musicians to take the initiative and improvise.

Chapter 11

Four Years to Go … [+–] 328-358

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Komeda is composing film music non-stop: by 1965 he has worked on over twenty films, including for directors Andrzej Kondratiuk, Henning Carlsen, Edward Etler and Mirosław Kijowicz. He flies to London to work on Polański’s Cul-de-sac and records Astigmatic, a landmark album in the history of European jazz.

Chapter 12

Two Years to Go … [+–] 359-381

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Komeda signs a contract with Paramount Picture Corporation and moves to LA to work on Polański’s Rosemary’s Baby. There, together with Polański, he pursues his passions for ski-ing and fast cars. His wife visits from Poland but leaves on learning that Komeda now has a girlfriend, the Israeli actress, Elana Eden.

Chapter 13

Eight Months to Go … [+–] 382-397

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Komeda starts work on Buzz Kulik’s film, Riot, rents a house with his girlfriend and parties with the Polish expatriates in L.A., including writer Marek Hłasko, who, at one of these parties (in October 1968) attempts a drunken bear hug, causing Komeda to take a tumble that leads to concussion.

Chapter 14

Half a Year to Go … [+–] 398-404

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Komeda starts having migraines and brief blackouts. He believes he has the flu. He collapses on Christmas Eve and is rushed to hospital, where he undergoes an operation to remove a large haematoma of the brain. He spends nearly four months in a coma in hospital in LA.

Chapter 15

Seventeen Days to Go … [+–] 405-411

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Komeda’s wife, Zofia, flies over to join him in L.A. Heartbroken, she writes to Roman Dyląg, lamenting how Hollywood has destroyed her husband. She flies back to Poland with Komeda on a stretcher. He never recovers consciousness and dies in hospital in Warsaw, a few days before his thirty-eighth birthday.

End Matter

Sources [+–] 412-413

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Select Discography [+–] 414-418

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Select Bibliography [+–] 419-421

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Endnotes [+–] 422-446

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Index of Names [+–] 447-456

Magdalena Grzebałkowska

Journalist and Author

Reviews

Playfully informal, open-ended take on biographical literature. It sheds some light on Komeda's background living with polio as a child, moonlighting as a doctor, living under Soviet censorship laws, having laughs on the road and his by no means straightforward relationship with wife Zofia. There are insights into how Komeda composed and conducted himself in rehearsals. His life story also opens up a wider perspective into the authoritarian Communist Polish regime during the 1950s and 60s. The book is especially good in the concluding chapters on the events leading up to his untimely death.
Jazzwise

Komeda is ... something of an enigma, so a detailed biography is overdue. Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz is commendably thorough, containing a painstakingly researched catalogue of his jazz collaborations, early gigs, foreign engagements, struggles to establish himself as a film composer, and his eventual emergence as the most important figure on the Polish contemporary jazz scene.
Where the book does score heavily ... is in its depiction of the tricky negotiations and accommodations required to survive as a jazz artist under the Soviet system. Being an award-winning journalist and historian, Magdalena Grzebałkowska is particularly adept at winkling out all the ironies, ambiguities and occasionally farcical instances of such attempts at control.
This is a valuable study of a uniquely influential figure.
London Jazz News

That it has taken over fifty years for the first English-language biography of Krzysztof Komeda to appear reflects the pianist/composer's underground status outside his native Poland. Yet no history of European jazz would be complete without mention of this modernizing figure, whose career burned briefly but brightly from 1956, when he launched his modern jazz sextet, until 1969, when he died, a rising film composer, in tragic circumstances in Los Angeles. Award-winning journalist and author Magdalena Grzebałkowska's book was published in Polish in 2018, but thanks to Equinox Publishing and a first-rate translation by Halina Maria Boniszewska, a rounded picture of Komeda emerges for international readership that places his achievements in context.
A highly readable tome that will likely serve as the main reference on Komeda for many years to come.
All About Jazz

With short portraits of important people in Komeda's life, rare photographs, 659 source references, a selected discography and bibliography, Grzebałkowska has succeeded in creating a compendium of Komeda's life and work in 15 chapters from which the reader derives great benefit. It is more than a mere supplement to previous publications about one of the most important musical personalities of our neighboring country.
Just for Swing Gazette

I have never read a jazz biography like this: vital, vodka tinged, tumultuous story of artists seeking freedom in a repressive society that seeks to limit rather than enrich. It is precise in detailing how the tools of subjugation work. It is about finding a voice against the odds.
Jazz Views

Provides an intimate glimpse into the life and development of a Polish jazz musician whose unique talent for hybridizing musical forms made its greatest impact across an international spectrum of film soundtracks.
Journal of Film Music

An artistic work unto itself, and an important contribution to international jazz research, history, and historiography. Grzebalkowska’s biography of Komeda can and should be a catalyst for further scholarship in Polish jazz.
Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal

Reviews of the original Polish edition:

Grzebałkowska has indeed managed to add to our knowledge of Komeda’s life in so many different areas, and this book will now be regarded as a key work – a point of departure for others, and certainly for the creators of the planned film (to be directed by Leszek Dawid and premiered in 2020). Just as the story of the pioneering years of Polish jazz can be told through Komeda’s biography, so, finally, his story has been incorporated into one comprehensive volume.
Bartek Chaciński, Polityka

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Komeda

A Private Life in Jazz

Magdalena Grzebałkowska [+–]

Journalist and Author

Halina Maria Boniszewska [+–]

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