Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz

Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz is the biography of Krzysztof (Trzcinski) Komeda (1931-1969), composer of no fewer than 40 soundtracks, including film scores to all of Roman Polanski's early films such as Knife in the Water and Rosemary's Baby; and revered figure in the world of jazz, which regards his album, Astigmatic (released in 1966), as a key album in the history of European jazz. This biography of Komeda, originally published in Polish by Znak in 2018, the first to be published in the English language, not only traces Komeda's life, but also the development of Polish jazz during this period, showing how this arose in large part out of a need for self-expression and personal freedom during a repressive period of Soviet communist dominance. The book is full of interviews between the biographer and people who worked with and knew Krzysztof Komeda personally, and, while thoroughly-grounded in primary sources, it is written in a playful, questioning, engaging style.

Komeda is ... something of an enigma, so a detailed biography is overdue. Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz is commendably thorough, containing a painstakingly researched catalogue of his jazz collaborations, early gigs, foreign engagements, struggles to establish himself as a film composer, and his eventual emergence as the most important figure on the Polish contemporary jazz scene. Where the book does score heavily ... is in its depiction of the tricky negotiations and accommodations required to survive as a jazz artist under the Soviet system. Being an award-winning journalist and historian, Magdalena Grzeba kowska is particularly adept at winkling out all the ironies, ambiguities and occasionally farcical instances of such attempts at control. This is a valuable study of a uniquely influential figure. --London Jazz News

That it has taken over fifty years for the first English-language biography of Krzysztof Komeda to appear reflects the pianist/composer's underground status outside his native Poland. Yet no history of European jazz would be complete without mention of this modernizing figure, whose career burned briefly but brightly from 1956, when he launched his modern jazz sextet, until 1969, when he died, a rising film composer, in tragic circumstances in Los Angeles. Award-winning journalist and author Magdalena Grzeba kowska's book was published in Polish in 2018, but thanks to Equinox Publishing and a first-rate translation by Halina Maria Boniszewska, a rounded picture of Komeda emerges for international readership that places his achievements in context. A highly readable tome that will likely serve as the main reference on Komeda for many years to come. --All About Jazz

With short portraits of important people in Komeda's life, rare photographs, 659 source references, a selected discography and bibliography, Grzeba kowska has succeeded in creating a compendium of Komeda's life and work in 15 chapters from which the reader derives great benefit. It is more than a mere supplement to previous publications about one of the most important musical personalities of our neighboring country. --Just for Swing Gazette