The First Festival of the Sweater Bands
Komeda - A Private Life in Jazz - Magdalena Grzebałkowska
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.
Description
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.