Komeda Unknown 1967 Piotr Schmidt

• 1Jonah07:55
• 2Miserere05:23
• 3The Classic08:00
• 4When the Light of Imagination Goes Out07:42
• 5Just the Two of Them05:40
• 6Jan Cherubin06:07
• Total Runtime40:47

Info for Komeda Unknown 1967

In October 1967 in Baden-Baden, Germany, Krzysztof Komeda recorded the jazz and poetry project Meine Süsse Europäische Heimat – My Sweet European Homeland. It would soon prove Komeda’s final European creation - in a sense, the composer’s farewell to Europe.

The album was released when Komeda was already in Hollywood, working on the score to Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. Letters between Komeda and the album’s producer Joachim-Ernst Berendt made it clear that more tracks were recorded than were finally released on the album. In one letter, Komeda asked Berendt to swap some tracks. Berendt refused, arguing that certain poems better demonstrated the album’s European character than others. And that was all that remained of the extra tracks…

It seemed that these unknown compositions were lost until, during a meticulous archival research at the National Library in Warsaw, a true treasure was found: the manuscripts of six of Komeda’s compositions from the My Sweet European Homeland project, all six the original cast-offs.

Komeda, though known for a self-effacing attitude to his own artistry, called My Sweet European Homeland the best work of his life. Meanwhile, Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote: “We have never yet had a poetry album with such beautiful, rich and emotional melodies!”. After over half a century, the unknown, hitherto missing part of Krzysztof Komeda’s My Sweet European Homeland will finally be heard by fans of the great jazz composer.

Interpreted and arranged by Piotr Schmidt, Komeda’s manuscripts have become extraordinary music, uncannily faithful to Krzysztof Komeda’s spirit. The lost set is accompanied by two compositions from the original album: Lament nad Europą and Po katastrofie, which serve to bridge the two parts of Komeda’s opus. What a wonderful homage to Krzysztof Komeda on the 90th anniversary of his birth, from Piotr Schmidt & friends. Our European homeland seems to have been waiting for this music…

Piotr Schmidt, trumpet
Kęstutis Vaiginis, tenor- and soprano saxophone
David Dorużka, guitar
Paweł Tomaszewski, piano
Harish Raghavan, bass (3, 4, 5, 7)
Michał Barański, bass (1, 2, 6)
Jonathan Barber, drums (3, 4, 5, 7)
Sebastian Kuchczyński, drums (1, 2, 6)

Piotr Schmidt
jazz trumpeter, graduate cum laude of the Jazz Institute at the Academy of Music, Katowice, Poland. He studied trumpet under the direction of Piotr Wojtasik. In 2006 he won a scholarship to University of Louisville, Kentucky. As an individual musician he received honourable mentions in the 2008 and 2009 Jazz nad Odrą competitions in Wrocław, and in the 2008 “I’st Tarnów Jazz Contest”. Tarnów Jazz Contest. He came third in the 2008 Zmagania Jazzowe in Szczecin, won Grand Prix in 2010 “Novum Jazz Festival” in Łomża and received an award for The Best Soloist in XXXIV Getxo Jazz Festival, Spain 2010.

I was born to a family with musical traditions. My mother’s a choral conductor by education; she has always been a great interpreter of classical piano at home, and a great sight reader. After raising the kids, she became a music educator and a school concert organiser on behalf of the Silesian and the Opole Philharmonics. My dad is a well-known jazz historian, author of a three-volume history of jazz which, since the late nineties, has been the textbook of choice at many jazz departments in Poland. He was a pianist and swing band leader in the 1940s, and afterwards became a leading Polish jazz and music educator, host of countless concerts and festivals, and jazz critic at various music publications. I was the only one of their three children to study music and I quickly started winning jazz competitions in Poland and Europe. After I won all that I could, I focused on my recording career

Currently, I’m not only a jazz trumpeter, but also a composer, band leader, music producer and publisher, lecturer at the Jazz Institutes of the University of Applied Sciences in Nysa and the Katowice Academy of Music, where in 2016 I’ve gained a doctoral degree in Music. In 2006 I won a scholarship to University of Louisville, Kentucky and early in my career (2006-2010) I won many individual awards and Grand Prix’s now being one of the most important jazz figures in Poland and middle Europe.

To date, I have produced and published twelve own albums, including three with Schmidt Electric. For the past eight years I have ranked among the best three jazz trumpeters in the annual Jazz Top poll of the Jazz Forum European magazine. One of my latest projects: Piotr Schmidt Quartet – Tribute to Tomasz Stańko is considered by Wolf Mueller (Sony Music Germany) as one of the 10 best albums from 2018 in the World!)

Among my many collaborators are: Walter Smith III, Matthew Stevens, Alex Hutchings, Ernesto Simpson, Ed Partyka, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, Dante Luciani, Francesco Angiuli. As publisher and producer, I have co-created SJRecords (www.sjrecords.eu) through which, from 2011, there have been published 52 albums well regarded by music fans and professionals, critics and music journalists ...

This album contains no booklet.