ADAM MAKOWICZ
Genres: Bop, Third Stream, Big Band, Swing, Stride Piano, Post Bop • Czech Republic

Adam Makowicz was born in 1940 to Polish parents in Czech Silesia. From the age of six he was raised in Poland. “I studied classical music at the Chopin Conservatory of Music in Krakow, but dropped out because of my involvement in jazz,” he recalled. “In the mid-fifties I discovered Willis Conover’s broadcast of the “Music USA Jazz Hour” which was emitted every night by the Voice of America. It changed my life forever. I chose a new life of freedom and improvisation- considered by authorities to be ‘decadent’- over the career of a classical pianist my parents and teachers envisioned for me.” As a result, Adam was forced to leave his home and school, and spent two years of homeless, hand-to-mouth living until he discovered a small jazz club hidden in a cellar where he could play and sleep in exchange for doing chores. After many years of hardship, Adam read more...