Updated: January 15, 2024
Born: January 26, 1956
The band name WM Project nods to the first letter in the surnames of pianist Andrzej Winnicki and tenor saxophonist Krzysztof Medyna, who are longtime collaborators. They performed together in Europe in the 1980s before relocating to the United States, and in the 1990s, they were members of the band Electric Breakwater. Also, they were both in the band the Komeda Project, which was dedicated to the music of Polish composer Krzysztof Komeda and recorded a few albums, including 2009’s Requiem. For their new band’s debut, the pianist and saxophonist have assembled a terrific lineup: trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, trombonist Marshall Gilkes, guitarist Rafal Sarnecki, bassist Jeff Dingler and drummer Michael Winnicki.
Plenty has been written about European musicians approaching the American jazz tradition; it's far rarer to hear about American musicians bringing their heritage to distinctly European projects. Capitalizing on the critical acclaim for its debut Crazy Girl, pianist/composer/arranger Andrzej Winnicki and saxophonist Krzysztof Medyna - the driving force behind Komeda Project—bring trumpeter Russ Johnson back for their new CD Requiem. What makes Requiem different, however, and a significant evolution over Crazy Girl, is the enlistment of über-bassist Scott Colley and the equally ubiquitous drummer Nasheet Waits.
Like Crazy Girl, Requiem's primary focus is to bring the music of the late, legendary Polish composer/pianist Krzysztof Komeda (Rosemary’s Baby; Knife in the Water) into the new millennium with fresh arrangements, but this time the approach is far more open-ended. Sacrificing the "comfort zone" of a group familiar with the music, Winnicki and Medyna opted, instead, for the first encounter "sound of surprise" that comes from working with master musicians like Colley and Waits.
Pianist Krzysztof Komeda was one of Poland's most famous modern composers and bandleaders during a brief life that ended in 1969, just shy of his 38th birthday. 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of his death. A self-taught musician, Komeda was best known for his scores to Roman Polanski films, from the director's breakthrough Knife in the Water (1962), to his Hollywood hits The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) and Rosemary's Baby (1968). He also led a renowned jazz quintet, releasing the internationally acclaimed Astigmatic in 1966. Trumpeter Tomasz Stanko - an international jazz star for his series of groundbreaking ECM albums including Litania (1997), an album of all-Komeda music—was the pianist's constant band mate from 1963 to 1968.
Born and raised in Poland, Andrzej Winnicki and Krzysztof Medyna have been playing together for over thirty years. They bring both a European classicism and melancholy Slavic melodism to music that's heavily refracted through the prism of the American tradition. Before moving to the United States in the late 1980s, they spent years touring Europe with the award-winning group Breakwater. Medyna was also a member of the group In/Formation, touring extensively on double bills with ECM recording artist/Polish trumpet legend Tomasz Stanko. After releasing In the Bush in 2001, with a reformed Electric Breakwater that also featured bassist Mark Egan and drummer Rodney Holmes, Winnicki and Medyna decided to unplug, forming the all-acoustic Komeda Project in 2004.
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WM Project: From a Familiar Place
![Read "From a Familiar Place" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/3532015c56ec70207417d11fd2d9c077.jpg)
by Dan McClenaghan
The WM Project, led by saxophonist Krzysztof Medyna and pianist Andrzej Winnicki, doesn't sound much like the Komeda Project. Medyna and Winnicki have earned well-deserved acclaim for their work in that ensemble that explores the music of their countryman, Krzysztof Komeda. But here, instead of the Polish melancholy, haunting themes and brooding melodies, they take From A Familiar Place into the more American realm of straight ahead, at times even brash bebop with, always, big solid grooves. Two ...
read moreKomeda Project: Requiem
![Read "Requiem" reviewed by Chris May](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/df26d0cc4fa4adedf1402b33be59aa23.jpg)
by Chris May
Despite the snowballing emergence of European jazz musicians on the world stage, relatively few European jazz composers have, in 2009, made it into the global repertory, which continues to be dominated by American voices. Perhaps it always will be, and perhaps local singularities--Italian or British or Scandinavian or whatever--are in any case better treasured, rather than absorbed into a single, universal body of work. But the fact remains that a cornucopia of great foreign" compositions remains neglected in jazz's birth ...
read moreKomeda Project: Requiem
![Read "Requiem" reviewed by Budd Kopman](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/df26d0cc4fa4adedf1402b33be59aa23.jpg)
by Budd Kopman
With the magnificent Requiem, pianist Andrzej Winnicki and saxophonist Krzysztof Medyna solidify and enhance their reputations as the prime promoters of the essential music of the Polish pianist and composer Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969). Komeda is widely recognized as the founder of modern Polish, and in a wider sense, European modern jazz. That he worked in Poland under Communist oppression is important. At its heart, jazz refuses to be pigeonholed, and it both allows and demands that its practitioners be utterly ...
read moreKomeda Project: Requiem
![Read "Requiem" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/df26d0cc4fa4adedf1402b33be59aa23.jpg)
by Jakob Baekgaard
There's an awareness which is located deep within human nature that we're subject to both positive feelings as well as destructive impulses: Love and death, Eros and Thanatos, exist side by side. All great art is a mirror of the human condition and nobody understood better than the Polish composer and pianist Krzysztof Komeda that life as well as music is composed of light and darkness.
The dual nature of Komeda's music is captured perfectly in one of his masterpieces, ...
read moreKomeda Project: Crazy Girl
![Read "Crazy Girl" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/6c0db46620a6659dfcf549883e2bc524.jpg)
by Michael P. Gladstone
This album is a rather unusual one, dedicated to 1960s Polish film scorer Krzysztof Komeda, who wrote music for films of the young Roman Polanski and Andraej Wajda. Some of the music on Crazy Girl was used for Polanski's, Rosemary's Baby (1968). Polanski used Komeda's music in almost all of his own films dating back to 1957's Two Men and a Wardrobe, and for the next decade, and credits Komeda with having composed the only major European soundtrack hit of ...
read moreKomeda Project: Crazy Girl
![Read "Crazy Girl" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/6c0db46620a6659dfcf549883e2bc524.jpg)
by C. Michael Bailey
In a too brief but productive life, Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969) composed in excess of forty film scores. These film scores include such Polish cinematic gems as Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water and Andrzej Wajda's Innocent Sorcerers. Komeda's first score for the screen was Polanski's first film, Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958). In the same way that Sam Peckenpaw used the same actors for his films, so Polanski would do with Komeda in almost all of his films from ...
read moreKomeda Project: Crazy Girl
![Read "Crazy Girl" reviewed by Alain Londes](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/6c0db46620a6659dfcf549883e2bc524.jpg)
by Alain Londes
The Komeda Project jazz quintet originated with Breakwater, the jazz group founded by pianist Andrzej Winnicki and saxophonist Krzysztof Medyna. Rounding out the group with Canadian bassist Michael Bates, drummer Dave Anthony and trumpeter/flugelhornist Russ Johnson, The Komeda Project pays homage to the great Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969), one of the founders of modern Polish jazz. Komeda reached international audiences through scoring a number of movies for Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda.
Over half of Crazy Girl's selections are Komeda-penned, largely ...
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...or were mentioned in an All About Jazz article.
"Crazy Girl" by Komeda Project - A Fresh New Look at the Wondrous Music of Krzysztof Komeda.
!["Crazy Girl" by Komeda Project - A Fresh New Look at the Wondrous Music of Krzysztof Komeda.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/photos/profile/musician/96f4df74101193f2ed13bd9cdb9da2ce.jpg)
Source:
All About Jazz
KOMEDA PROJECT, a jazz quintet, was brought to life from a desire to perform - on this side of the Atlantic - and be able to hear live, music of Krzysztof Komeda again. Their just released Crazy Girl CD consists of six Komeda compositions ("Crazy Girl," Kattorna," Ballada," Svantetic Prelude," Svantetic" and Sleep Safe and Warm") plus three of the group's originals and has already begun to be noticed here and abroad.
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For their new band’s debut, the pianist and saxophonist have assembled a terrific lineup: trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, trombonist Marshall Gilkes, guitarist Rafal Sarnecki, bassist Jeff Dingler and drummer Michael Winnicki, who is Andrzej’s son. “Looking Ahead”—an Electric Breakwater tune that has been recast in an arrangement that features Pelt—displays the muscularity of a large ensemble and the nimbleness of a combo. Michael Winnicki’s “Das Bounce” illustrates the band’s mastery of shifting moods and time signatures, while Andrzej Winnicki’s buoyant “Praeludium” offers driving momentum, a potent bass line and a horn riff that becomes an earworm
Primary Instrument
Piano
Location
Newark
Willing to teach
Intermediate to advanced