Zbigniew Namysłowski

Saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger; born on 9 September 1939 in Warsaw. Zbigniew Namyslowski graduated from music schools in Krakow, Warsaw. He learned how to play the cello and the piano there. In 1957, he made his debut at the Student Club Hybrydy in Sopot. He was a trombone player in Polish dixieland groups. He discovered modern jazz after which he began playing the alto Saxophone. He has performed all over Europe, as well as in the USA, Canada and Australia, New Zealand and Cuba. He has almost 30 records of author’s recordings. Many of these records were published overseas, including Lola (1964), the first Polish record to be published abroad. Lola (1964), the first Polish album published abroad, or Song Of The Pterodactil featuring Tony Williams, the famous drummer. The Polish jazz records Winobranie (1973), and Kuyaviak Goes Funky (1975) were huge hits and voted the greatest in Polish jazz. In 1955, he was a jazz pianist with the Five Brothers group formed at the Hybrydy student clubs. He joined Mieczyslaw Waddi’s amateur Dixieland group as a trombonist a year later. Then he was transferred to the Modern Dixielanders under Witold Krotochwil. He joined Modern Combo in 1957 as its cellist and performed at the Sopot Jazz Festival. In 1958, he returned to trombone playing with Hot Club Melomani, with whom he participated in an historic event: the first ever jazz concert at Warsaw’s National Philharmonic. He was also part of the first post-war Polish jazzmen’s visit to Western Europe. He collaborated with many well-known groups such as the Modern Dixielanders and Modern Jazz Makers, New Orleans Stompers, Modern Jazz Group, Polish All Stars, Modern Dixielanders and Traditional Jazz Makers in subsequent years. He gave up traditional jazz in 1960. He began playing the alto-saxophone, which quickly became his favorite instrument. From 1963 to 1963, he was in Andrzej Trzaskowski’s band The Wreckers. He traveled to America for the first U.S. concert by a Polish band of jazz musicians, and took part in the Newport festival in 1962. He also fulfilled his artistic goals. In 1961, he founded Jazz Rockers, his first major band. He also started other bands (mainly quintets and quartets), with great jazzmen such as Wlodzimierz Wojcik and Tadeusz Wojcik. Since 1993, he has been performing with Leszek Mzdzer and Zbigniew Weghaupt. He travelled to the United States in 1978 to give concerts with Michal Urbaniak (and Urszula Dziak) and returned to Poland two years later. He performed at the Polish Radio Jazz Studio with the Chalturnik Association to Support True Creativity (SPPT Chalturnik), Jan Ptaszyn Wroblewski’s group, as well as with the Novi Singers on their tour of India and New Zealand. He performed with his own bands at almost all major jazz festivals, including the Jazz Jamborees. He has performed all over Europe, as well as in the United States, Canada and Australia, New Zealand and Israel. Since the 1960s, he has been a composer. He enjoys combining jazz and traditional and classical music. His compositions include Siodmawka and Zablakana Owiecka. He has also recorded CDs with a highlander group and jazz versions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s music (Mozart in Jazz 1999; Mozart Goes Jazz 1999; and Jazz 2002).

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