Melomani

Melomani (English: Music lovers), also known as Hot-Club Melomani, was a pioneer Polish jazz band, created by the first self-styled Polish jazz musicians.

It was founded in 1951 (or, according to other sources, in 1947) in Łódź, in the period of Stalinism, when jazz music was officially banned in Poland, as it was regarded synonymous with the reactionary American culture and considered as part of Western, rotten imperialism.

Jazz music was played in the Second Polish Republic since late 1920s, mostly in fashionable restaurants and bars in major cities, such as Warsaw, Kraków or Poznań. Among most popular authors, played in Poland in the 1930s, were George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. However, there were no established, independent bands.

Following World War II, new, communist government of People's Republic of Poland banned jazz music, after the initial period of fascination and limited artistic freedom in 1946 and 1947. It was seen as part of the decadent, American culture and as such jazz was outlawed, together with modern art. This stance of the government was disliked among rebellious individuals and groups of the Polish youth (among them Leopold Tyrmand), who went underground to keep on playing their favorite music (hence, the period of late 1940s and early 1950s is called the catacombs).

According to saxophonist and composer Jerzy Matuszkiewicz, who is the founding member of the band, Melomani consisted of students of the famous National Film School in Łódź, such as Witold Sobociński and Andrzej Wojciechowski (Matuszkiewicz also studied there) as well as other persons from Kraków and Poznań, because in Łódź itself, there were not enough jazz-oriented musicians. Later on, Krzysztof Komeda, generally regarded as the best jazz player in Poland, also joined the band. Other members were Witold Kujawski, Aleksander Tomys, Andrzej Kurylewicz and Andrzej Trzaskowski, but the lineup fluctuated.

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