Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet · Andrzej Trzaskowski was born in 1933 in Kraków. He began the piano at the age of four and formed his first jazz band at a young age. In 1950 he spent three months in prison, suspected of belonging to an underground group, and was afterwards not immediately allowed to go to university. He eventually studied music history in Kraków and learned new compositional techniques at the Polish Radio Experimental Studio. He was a pianist, composer and musicologist and from the mid-1950s was regarded as an authority on syncopated music.

Music and breakthrough

In 1959 he settled in Warsaw and founded the band The Wreckers, inspired by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and hard bop. He himself took Horace Silver as his example. In 1960 his trio accompanied Stan Getz at the Jamboree festival. He also wrote film music, including for Night Train from 1959. In 1962 the band went to the United States and played in Washington, Newport, New Orleans and at the Village Vanguard in New York. As the first Polish jazz musicians there, they called themselves Iron Curtain Jazz. The group was afterwards called the Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet. In 1965 the album Polish Jazz, Volume 4 appeared.

Influence

His music shows how jazz behind the Iron Curtain was not merely a copy, but formed a serious tradition of its own. He was a key figure in Polish jazz.

Listening

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  Requiem dla Scotta LaFaro · Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet, 1965

Discography

Studio albums

• 1965Polish Jazz, Volume 4
• 1965The Andrzej Trzaskowski Quintet