ADAM MAKOWICZ – Pianist, Arranger, Composer

Adam Makowicz (pronounced “mah-KAW-veetch”) is an internationally acclaimed jazz piano virtuoso who has dazzled audiences throughout the world with his touch, articulation, and rich harmonic textures. Recently returned from a three-month European tour, Makowicz teams up again with two exceptional artists whom he has performed and recorded with before – George Mraz on bass and Al Foster on drums – for four nights at New York’s legendary jazz club Birdland, which took its name from Charlie “Birdyard” Parker, the opening-night headliner when the club was launched in 1949. Performing in trio, Makowicz will offer both American standards and original compositions from his two solo-piano CDs: Songs from Manhattan and his newly-released From My Field.

Born of Polish parents in Czechoslovakia and raised in Poland from the age of six, Adam was being trained to fulfill his parents’ wish that he become a classical pianist when, at 16, he discovered jazz on Willis Conover’s Music USA Jazz Hour on the Voice of America – at a time in early fifties’ Stalinist Poland when jazz was officially regarded as decadent and subversive.

Thrilled by the freedom of improvisation in the work of jazz piano greats like Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, and Earl Fatha Hines, Adam realized that jazz was his calling. But he faced obstacles of a kind that his counterparts in Western Europe, for example, did not. When he was forbidden to play jazz not only by his parents but also by his music school, Adam ran away from home and went to Krakow. For a couple of years he lived mostly on the streets, usually hungry, sleeping at the railroad station in winter and on park benches in the summer. Occasionally a friend would hear of an empty dormitory bed, or spare him a couple of food vouchers. But his main goal was to find any and every available moment at some unused piano. There were no jazz teachers, no tape recorders, and no recordings except those smuggled in from the West. So Adam and his friends had to learn jazz by remembering what they heard on the radio. As restrictions were loosened following the death of Stalin, Adam could sometimes earn pocket money doing gigs in bars.

Eventually, Adam found a semi-clandestine cellar jazz club where, in return for doing chores, he was allowed to practice on the piano and sleep underneath it. His long hours spent at the keyboard soon paid off and he formed a group that performed nightly at the club.

Adam dates his professional career from 1964, when a quartet he had helped form, "The Jazz Darings," won first prize at a jazz group competition in Poland. Soon thereafter he launched the Adam Makowicz Trio, performing in Poland, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Cuba. His first solo album was Live Embers in 1975.

Adam Makowicz could already be heard on 26 albums, had performed on three continents, and been voted Number One Jazz Pianist of Europe six years in a row by the readers of Jazz Forum, when legendary record producer John Hammond invited him to New York in 1977 for a 10-week engagement at The Cookery and a solo album, Adam, for CBS Columbia Records. Makowicz went on to perform at Carnegie Hall with Earl Hines, George Shearing, and Teddy Wilson. In 1978 he settled in New York City and was banned from Poland until it regained its freedom in 1989. The Toronto Star called Makowicz “a rare artist who grips and holds attention… A gifted improviser with splendid technical prowess, the pianist can also offer warmth and affection in melodic lines, the balance of fine taste, pungent swing and a jubilant approach inevitably generating audience cheer.”

A major attraction at jazz festivals worldwide, and a popular soloist with many of the world’s leading philharmonic orchestras, especially in his native Poland, Adam Makowicz has expanded his discography to 53 albums, with 37 of them under his own name. In addition to his brilliant improvisations on Berlin, Gershwin, Ellington, Bernstein and other composers, he brings his extraordinary technical virtuosity to bear upon his own musical roots, building bridges between classical music and jazz, as in the CD, Reflections on Chopin, and his original compositions in both Songs for Manhattan, released on his own label (AM Records) in October, 2003, and his latest release, From My Field (2005).

For more on Adam’s career, concerts abroad, and discography, visit his website at www.west.net/~jazz/