Nothing can set in motion so explosively, and on such an extraordinarily wide scale, so numerous a set of factors and so broad a range of projections of every kind as the potential of jubilee celebrations. So it can cause no astonishment that the jubilee of 60 years of Nowa Huta, thanks to a number of culture-creating institutions, the most varied centres and also social organisations, started sharply and with acceleration, with a machine of initiative bringing with it countless concerts, shows, performances, film screenings, artistic events of every kind and more besides. That intensified campaign of an unprecedented artistic movement was the result of the incredible number of artistic formations working in the Nowa Huta district, including those whose stage appearances were connected with their being reactivated, and also of the participation of individual performers who enriched that artistic panorama with their appearances.
In this context the astonished attention of the media was held – in a special way – by the fact that on Nowa Huta ground, under the system of socialist realism, a Jazz Klub could exist. And to crown that peculiarity: under the auspices of the ZMS (Union of Socialist Youth). Nor can one fail to stress the important phenomenon that in this place syncopated sounds rang out whose creators were a whole galaxy of the greatest aces of our native jazz. Which does not mean that some of the jam sessions did without jazzmen from our country.
The a priori assumption that social awareness was subject to the conviction of the absolute domination of an indoctrinating ideology, and that in all spheres of life of the past era, meets with a rejoinder. For the liberal current allowed a quite different kind of contestation and convincingly revealed to us a number of events that serve as evidence.
The creation of the Jazz Klub and the playing – in the company of a striking decor – of syncopated music that came from the culture of the West is undoubtedly, from today's perspective, a sensation of its own kind. Following that trail timidly, at the secondary music school, where I was lucky enough to train my voice in the vocal department, on the occasion of a favourable meeting with the headmaster Juliusz Weber, I summoned up this heroic courage: – Headmaster! – May we organise a jam session in our school hall? Please believe me! – it was easier to imagine that in a moment I might fly out of the school – as if from a catapult – and yet I heard consent. This of course left me completely frozen, and my heart was beating like the Sigismund Bell.
The jazz evening thus arranged was graced not only by the leading jazzmen of Kraków and Nowa Huta, but also by young adepts who announced their jazz prospects in quite an interesting way. We were honoured by the ennobling presence of the deputy headmaster Stefan Smiczka and – what is extremely important – he made us boundlessly happy by letting us use the school drum kit.
A lesson in music literature, in turn, brought us an enormous surprise. It was probably, in a way, a repercussion of the jazz evening. Professor Zofia Weberowa (the Headmaster's wife) played during the lesson, for identification: a music recording. It so happened that I had behind me a concert with an American quartet. I instantly raised two fingers to announce triumphantly that this was the jazz formation of Dave Brubeck. I confess with satisfaction that those two events in consequence paved the way for the creation of a jazz class at the school. And educational successes were celebrated in it by the excellent jazzman, multi-instrumentalist, composer and journalist Prof. Lesław Lic.
A curiosity in the context of total paradox may be this fact: it was precisely Lesław Lic who, a little before the jam mentioned was organised at the State Secondary Music School, did not fail to give, in the pages of „Jazz”, valuable advice to Stanisław Chorąży, who in the same pages complained of the lack of prospects in Nowa Huta for a group of young boys who wished to play jazz music.
In a situation of codified activity, in an institution whose doors had long been wide open to jazzmen, confabulating publications of this kind can only cause astonishment. The attempts to spread the opinion that there were no conditions allowing young aspirants to develop their jazz ambitions were not just isolated cases.
At this point the guiding thought became the signpost for a return to the wonderful beginning, which was an excellent prognosis for the future of the wide jazz current.
Taking up studies at the Academy of Music turned out to be not only a continuation of knowledge and of perfecting musical skills. It was also, unfailingly, a friendly ground for enriching the resources whose name is jazz.
True, over the span of 4 years of struggling with musical matter that was sometimes noticeably resistant, as not always translatable into the language of practice. Yet, for example, the guitar-playing skills I acquired I passed on – in modified form – for the use of young people as part of my culture-creating work at the ZDK (the Lenin Steelworks House of Culture). Whether jazz phrases appeared later in their music-making is hard to judge. And the 5th year of studies bore fruit in events which turned out to be the crowning of the ideas I pursued, with their jazz preferences.
The lesson at the State Secondary Music School concerning knowledge of music literature has been outlined above. And at the Academy of Music literature was served to us by Professor Zofia Burowska, who was at the same time the dean of our faculty. In one of the classes the dean told our group to prepare a paper, addressed to young people, promoting serious music. To this dictum I asked to speak, and my line of thought ran as follows: I have a warm request that you, Professor, agree to my writing a paper promoting the music of the band Skaldowie. Then I added: I trust that you will accept its formula. At the next class I presented the text of the paper, which led to my being appointed to host a concert of classical music with students of our academy at the Kraków House of Culture „Pod Baranami”. To this day I do not grasp how that paper translated into the character of the concert.
No less important is that the paper received an approving mark, and that what followed – as all the signs in heaven and on earth indicated – was that the convincing content of the paper turned out to be a small prophetic prelude to another occasion of a much larger format.
For the time being! – returning to the happy ending of the lesson in the history of music literature, let us reveal the reasons for the positive review. I justified the idea of choosing Skaldowie as a musical offer for young listeners as follows: since the interest of young people is concentrated mainly on big-beat music, let us allow them to get excited about Skaldowie. For the performers of this band have a proper musical education (students of the Academy of Music), and their knowledge and skills ensure for young listeners a high artistic level that shapes the desired aesthetic models.
In the course of further struggles with ever more difficult knowledge and musical skills, including proficiency in conducting a choir and an orchestra (this was, after all, already the 5th year of studies) – on a plane dominated by classical music – could flashes of a jazz phrase appear in my mind? From today's perspective a clear answer to this question is rather enigmatic. And here I wish to confess that those reflections took place in the context of extremely burdensome work: an excessive load of tasks arising from the need to prepare a gigantic show on the stage of the Teatr Ludowy, with all the artistic formations of the ZDK including the groups of its branches – enriched also with film projections. Assigned to me, that burden meant having to visit all the institutions subordinate to the ZDK's headquarters. And it required special stamina, and also a seasoned talent for organisation. And on top of this wide range of activities came the duty of travelling several times to the academy in order to complete the final examinations and credits.
Fortunately, in our life it is precisely in the most extremely dramatic situation that a good omen sometimes appears, to give us without fail a dose of the changeability of fate.
As the blessed time came for settling the subject of the master's thesis, I went at once – though not without stage fright – to the dean's office so that this formal act could be accomplished. When, in a trembling voice, politely and timidly, I asked the dean what subject I should take for my thesis – the answer put me into a state of downright frenzied happiness. And it came in a form of not quite correct wording: „Oh, write about those jazzes and beats of yours”. Here I hasten to explain that Professor Zofia Burowska did not slavishly keep to her professorial strictness, which won her both esteem and regard from the students.
So my unspeakable gratitude to the Professor was – at regular intervals – expressed in a prayer for her intention.
To conclude: the extremely telling threads presented here, which form a sequence, may perhaps arouse in internet users the conviction that their weight and significance, and above all their role as driving ideas, deserve to be more widely known, since they played an unprecedented part, bringing about a breakthrough of a kind in the dogmatic understanding – mainly by its fundamental defenders – of the principles of musical education in the spirit of the classical canon.
And yet in that triumphant march there appears a feeling hard to categorise: – so outstanding and extremely vigorous a musical milieu as Kraków's – did not crown the exceptionally significant scale of the development of the jazz „conquest” with the creation of a jazz department at the Kraków academy. Why? In deep thought, and with regret, I remain
