The history of the Cracow All Souls’ Day Jazz Festival
Polish fascination with jazz music dates to the period before the Second World War but just after the liberation, the real fanatic jazz boom came to appear. Today that boom seems to be the escape of intellectual society from the gloomy politics of those times to the slight feeling of freedom given then by jazz. In 1954 there were many eminent jazz musicians performing at a worldwide level. They knew each other but with no opportunity to meet all together. All Souls’ Day was the only day in the year when everyone had some time off. And such a day was the All Souls’ Day in 1954 when all Polish jazz musicians gathered in the gymnastic hall at the Primary School no 32 on 78 Queen Jadwiga Street in Cracow. Among the organizers were: Witold Kujawski, Marian Eile, Jacek Borowiec, and Jerzy Skarżyński. Although that musical performance was not exactly a concert, it proved then to be the first Polish jam session which was placed in the history as the very first Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival. A year after, on the same day, the second Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival was held in the Cultural Centre in Zabrze but since then all successive festivals have remained in Cracow. In 1956 the Cracow authorities officially registered the Cracow Jazz-Club “Helikon” which appeared to be in charge of the organization of The Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festivals. The following year the Cracow Philharmonic Hall, as the first one in Poland, opened its door wide for jazz music. The great star of the IV festival was Andrzej Kurylewicz. The VII Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival became the first international one with Stan Getz on the stage of the Cracow Philharmonic Hall. It was the year 1960. Two years later the Cracow Jazz-Club “Helikon” run by the then President Jan Bryczek established the medal of the “Golden Helikon” handed over to the most interesting Polish musicians performing during festivals. Andrzej Kurylewicz was the first who had the honor to receive the “Golden Helikon”. Subsequently, the medal was handed to Andrzej Trzaskowski, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Roman Dyląg. The XIV Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival took place in 1967. In 1968 after the political decision of closing up the Cracow Jazz-Club “Helikon” in the fear of spreading students’ revolt – the Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival was canceled. In 1969 when the Cracow Jazz Association came into being the then municipal authorities refused consent without giving any reasons to organize the Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival. In both 1968 and 1969 years, however, secret jazz-club events took place around All Souls’ Day and were named in confidence from the authorities and public as the Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festivals. The later environmental analysis showed some conjectures that the most harmful for the festival could have been the festival name wrongly associated with a religious holiday. The following year the festival was organized under the name of the Cracow Jazz Festival but everyone knew it was the Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival. The underground All Souls’ Day Festivals of the years of 1968 and 1969, however, were not included in the festival numbering. In 1970 the Cracow Branch of the Polish Jazz Association was run by President Lucjan Kaszycki. Then the tradition of a two-day festival on Monday and Tuesday held just after Warsaw Jazz Jamboree returned to a custom. The main concerts were performed on the stage of the Cracow Philharmonic Hall and the jam sessions were held in the Cracow Krzysztofory Club. The successive Presidents of the Cracow Branch: Jan Poprawa and Janusz Muniak carried out their statutory duties bringing up to the XXXV edition of the festival. They, however, remained the term of the Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival which was just after the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree for the reason that salaries of foreign artists performing in both festivals turned out then to be much lower. Although the Cracow audience had a great opportunity to watch and listen to many world-famous musicians, the rank of the festival slightly declined, and some malicious people even claimed that the Cracow festival seemed to be “poor scraps of Jazz Jamboree”. This opinion, yet, was not approvable because artists like Woody Herman, the legendary Duke Ellington’s big band conducted by his son Marcel, Don Cherry or Didier Lockwood appeared during the festival in Cracow.
In the year of 1991, Marek Stryszowski took on a post of the President of the Polish Jazz Association in Cracow. He had no other way out but to realize the statutory goals of the Association. The first Marek Stryszowski’s Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival, and the XXXVI in total took place on the stage of the Groteska Theatre. Since then two dominant changes in the history of Polish jazz have been observed. The first more essential one concerns a name referring to the time of concert festivals. Stryszowski has broken with a tradition of organizing the Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival just after the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree claiming that the Cracow festival should have been an independent one with a separate program. The second change introduced by Stryszowski involves the formula of a “wandering festival”. Today in Cracow practically there is no place with jazz music where the concerts of the Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festivals would not be performed. Marek Stryszowski as the President had a great honor to organize the jubilee XL Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival. He entrusted veterans of Polish jazz Andrzej Jaroszewski and Jan Poprawa with the conducting of that special edition of the festival. The President also reminded the public about once given up celebration of handing over the medal of the “Golden Helikon”, simultaneously spreading the range of awarded people. From that time not only musicians but also people supporting jazz have received the “Golden Helikon” and so among them in 1995 were: Emil Brix the general consul of the Austrian Republic and Jadwiga Tyrankiewicz the head director of the LOT Polish Airlines Company as well as awarded posthumous: Andrzej Zaucha, Henryk Słaboszowski, Jerzy Bezucha – Polish musicians. The great star of that jubilee festival was Acker Bilk.
Describing the history of the Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival we cannot ignore the unique and one of the most important accompanying events which constitute the closing up of the festival. It is not exactly an event it is a kind of mystery. The mystery was firstly initiated in 1987 by Jan Budziaszek as a requiem mass for late jazz musicians. The requiem masses have been being served at the end of the festivals as the characteristic completion for over twenty years now. Officially the requiem mass was placed in the program of the festival in the post-communist times during the presidency of Marek Stryszowski.
In the year 2005 Marek Stryszowski organized the jubilee 50 Cracow Jazz All Souls’ Day Festival. The atmosphere of the festival was more solemn than it used to be before but without any special jubilee background. The more important matter for that time was the fact of surviving one of the oldest or maybe even the oldest jazz festival in the world.
Wiesław Siekierski
(tłum. Dorota Zawiślan)
Historia Krakowskich Zaduszek Jazzowych
Zaduszki Jazzowe to cykl koncertów jazzowych, organizowany w wielu miastach Polski w listopadzie, w okresie zadusznym.
Fascynacja muzyką jazzową w Polsce zrodziła się jeszcze w czasach przedwojennych, ale tuż po wyzwoleniu nastąpiło coś w rodzaju niemal fanatycznego uwielbienia dla tego gatunku muzyki. Dziś tłumaczy się to ucieczką środowisk intelektualnych od ponurej politycznie rzeczywistości do namiastki poczucia wolności, jaką wówczas dawał jazz.
W latach 50. w Polsce było już wielu znakomitych muzyków jazzowych, grających na światowym poziomie. Znali się wszyscy, ale nie mieli możliwości spotkać się razem. Jedynym dniem w ciągu roku, w którym wszyscy dysponowali czasem, był Dzień Zaduszny.
I właśnie tego dnia w 1954 doszło do spotkania wszystkich polskich jazzmanów na sali gimnastycznej szkoły podstawowej w Krakowie przy ulicy Królowej Jadwigi. Chociaż tamto muzykowanie nie miało charakteru koncertowego, a było to pierwsze ogólnopolskie jam session, to i tak do historii przeszło jako pierwsze Krakowskie Zaduszki Jazzowe.
Rok później II Krakowskie Zaduszki Jazzowe odbyły się w Domu Kultury w Zabrzu. Ale już wszystkie kolejne festiwale pozostały na zawsze w Krakowie.
W roku 1956 powstał Krakowski Jazz-Klub “Helikon”, który od tej pory przejął organizację festiwalu. W roku następnym Krakowska Filharmonia, jako pierwsza w Polsce, otwarła swoje podwoje dla jazzu, a gwiazdą był Andrzej Kurylewicz.
W 1960 festiwal był już imprezą międzynarodową, a na scenie Krakowskiej Filharmonii zagrał Stan Getz.
Dwa lata później klub “Helikon” ustanowił odznaczenie “Złoty Helikon”, które jako pierwszy otrzymał Andrzej Kurylewicz.
W 1968, po politycznej decyzji zamknięcia “Helikonu”, Zaduszek nie było. W roku następnym ówczesne władze miasta nie wyraziły zgody na organizację festiwalu bez podania przyczyn odmowy. Jednak w obu tych latach odbyły się klubowe imprezy jazzowe, które w tajemnicy przed władzą i publicznością nazwano Zaduszkami. Domyślano się, że festiwalowi zaszkodziła nazwa, kojarząca się (niesłusznie) z obchodami religijnymi. Zaduszki lat 1968 i 1969 nie weszły w numerację festiwalu.
W 1970 wznowiono festiwal pod bezpieczną nazwą Krakowski Festiwal Jazzowy, ale i tak powszechnie nazywano go Zaduszkami. Wtedy festiwal trwał dwa dni, bezpośrednio po warszawskim Jazz Jamboree. Koncerty główne odbywały się w Filharmonii, a spotkania jam sessions w krakowskich “Krzysztoforach”.
W 1991 prezesem PSJ w Krakowie został Marek Stryszowski. Pierwsze przez niego zorganizowane Zaduszki odbyły się na deskach teatru “Groteska”.
Od tego czasu można zaobserwować w historii festiwalu dwie zasadnicze zmiany: nawiązanie nazwy do czasu koncertów festiwalowych i przyjęcie formuły “festiwalu wędrującego”. Dziś praktycznie w Krakowie nie ma miejsca, w którym gra się jazz, gdzie nie byłoby koncertów zaduszkowych
W 2005 Marek Stryszowski zorganizował jubileuszowe 50. Krakowskie Zaduszki Jazzowe. Wówczas za sprawę najważniejszą uznano fakt przetrwania jednego z najstarszych, o ile nie najstarszego, festiwalu jazzowego na świecie i po raz drugi za prezesury Stryszowskiego wręczono “Złote Helikony”.