WOJCIECH KAROLAK TRIO (HARRIS PIANO JAZZ BAR 20th ANNIVERSARY)

This concert forms part of the Harris Piano Jazz Bar 20th anniversary.

Wojciech Karolak – Hammond organ
Tomasz Grzegorski – tenor sax
Arek Skolik – drums

tickets: 50 pln

WOJCIECH KAROLAK

fot. Filip Błażejowski

Pianist, organist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger, born on 28 May 1939 in Warsaw.

A graduate of Krakow’s music secondary school in the piano class, he later studied at the Theory Department of the State Higher School of Music in Krakow.

He debuted as a jazz pianist in 1956 with a Dixieland band he founded. He became an active saxophonist two years later with the band Jazz Believers, whose line-up included Andrzej Trzaskowski, Krzysztof Komeda, and Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski. In 1959-60 he played with Trzaskowski’s band The Wreckers, making parallel appearances with the bands of Andrzej Kurylewicz and Jerzy Matuszkiewicz. He gave up the saxophone as a career in 1961, devoting himself exclusively to the piano. With Roman Dyląg and Andrzej Dąbrowski, in 1962 he set up The Karolak Trio, with whom he recorded his first original album. In 1963-66 he worked with Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski’s Polish Jazz Quartet. He lived in Sweden between 1966 and 1973, playing in various formations and collaborating with Michał Urbaniak, with whom he performed in countries including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the United States. After returning to Poland, in 1973-78 he was a member of Wróblewski’s band Mainstream. He also worked with Czesław Bartkowski, Janusz Muniak, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Tomasz Szukalski, Jarosław Śmietana, and the Polish Radio Jazz Studio.

In 1979 he decided to limit his concert activity and devote his time to composition. He wrote pop and cabaret songs, mostly to lyrics written by his wife, Maria Czubaszek. Larger compositions appeared in the 1980s – suites, film soundtracks and music for theatre productions as well as numerous jazz themes.

He resumed concert activity in 1984, appearing in the trio of Szukalski and Bartkowski. With them, he recorded the LP Time Killers which “Jazz Forum” magazine hailed as the best jazz album of the 1980s. In subsequent years he recorded for Polish Radio as well as foreign record labels. In 1995 he set up The High Bred Jazz Trio with Piotr Baron and Zbigniew Lewandowski. He also collaborated with Leszek Cichoński’s band Guitar Workshop. To mark the 40th anniversary of his artistic career, in 1998 he gave a special jubilee concert during the Jazz Jamboree.

In polls held by “Jazz International” magazine he was chosen Europe’s top jazz organist in 1973-74, and was many-times winner of “Jazz Forum” magazine’s ranking list in the following categories: arranger (1983-86), and organist (1983-88, 1990, and 1992-2001). He received the Mateusz Award (named after Mateusz Święcicki) for life achievement from the music section of Polish Radio’s Programme 3.