You can help expand this article with text translated from
the corresponding article in German. (July 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the German article.
Machine translation, like
DeepL or
Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,106 articles in the
main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide
copyright attribution in the
edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an
interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Jazz in Polen]]; see its history for attribution.
You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Jazz in Polen}} to the
talk page.
Polish jazz has a history that spans periods of both acceptance and political repression.
Before communism (1930–39)
The beginning of jazz in Poland is difficult to determine. As early as the 1930s, clubs in
Warsaw,
Kraków,
Rzeszów or
Poznań would play some jazz. This tended to be
swing and some of it was influenced by the traditional classical music. American popular music (particularly songs by
George Gershwin) was in great demand.[1]Eddie Rosner is considered to be the first Polish jazz musician of significance.
Stalinist repression (1945–58)
After the Communist takeover, jazz was initially repressed. Although groups like
Melomani existed, jazz was officially condemned and forbidden from the radio.[2] Musicians learned about jazz by listening to a
shortwave radio broadcast of
Willis Conover's Voice of America Jazz Hour or smuggling jazz records from abroad.[3] Soon Polish jazz musicians started organizing concerts and the first official jazz festival took place in
Sopot in 1956.
Liberalisation (Out of the Underground 1958–67)
After the death of Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin, jazz in Poland gained renewed freedom. In 1958,
Dave Brubeck visited Poland and the nation's jazz scene became influenced by
cool jazz. By the sixties, three strands had emerged as dominant;
trad jazz, "mainstream", and
free jazz.
Krzysztof Komeda became the leader of a modern jazz movement that did not copy the American way of playing but developed its own "European" style, especially with his album Astigmatic[4] recorded in December 1965.
Wojciech Karolak –
Hammond organist, keyboardist, pianist (describes himself as "an American jazz and R&B musician, born by mistake in the middle of Europe")