Q&A with Magdalena Grzebałkowska

To sum up the 50th anniversary of the death of the eminent composer and jazz musician Krzysztof Komeda, after two concerts with his music, we have the pleasure of inviting you to a Q&A with the author of his biography.

Q&A with Magdalena Grzebałkowska, the author of “Komeda. A Private Life in Jazz”

December 13th, 2019, 6:30 PM
Fama club, 5 Legionowa Street
free admission

A man of mystery. He did not write letters. He did not keep logs. Curmudgeon. Nice. Smiling. Separate – that’s what they said about him. Most of what we know about Krzysztof Komeda comes from the memories of his wife. Often contrary to what others remember. Agnieszka Osiecka wrote that when he played the piano, his hands told “small, intimate stories about the sky for two.” But his life was not such a story.

To find out the truth about one of the greatest Polish musicians, whose lullaby from “Rosemary’s Baby” hummed the whole world, Magdalena Grzebałkowska visits, among others, the Scandinavian countries, Russia and the United States. She reaches the last living witness of the tragic fall from the escarpment fifty years ago and is the first to present his version of events. She discovers the personal life of Polish jazz – Komeda and the environment he lived in: from the colorful life of Piwnica pod Baranami and the birth of the Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw to Los Angeles just after a summer of love. She learns the stories of people who gave up work, children, prosperous life for music.

It is a moving portrait of a generation for whom jazz was the most beautiful – and often the only – substitute for freedom.

Magdalena Grzebałkowska is a reporter and author of the best-selling books: “Paradox Priest. Biography of Jan Twardowski”, “The Beksińskis. Double Portrait” and “1945. War and Peace”. Winner of Nike Prize 2016.