Film description

This is a fragment of a Polish Newsreel where the young Krzysztof Komeda, at the cusp of  worldwide fame, improvises on J.S. Bach with his band; magnificent jazz flows in an atmosphere conjured by dark colours and cigarette smoke. The very fact that Komeda’s music is shown in a government controlled Polish Newsreel resulted from the 1956 October censorship and political ‘thaw’ that overturned edicts such as the ban on public performance of jazz.