Komeda - A Private Life in Jazz - Magdalena Grzebałkowska
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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
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).