"Komeda Unknown" - 4th best album in the world in 1967!

The website www.skjazz.sk recognized the album Komeda Unknown 1967 by Piotr Schmidt International Sextet as the fourth best album in the world in 2022!

Patrick Španko, thank you very much!!

This is the fourth best jazz album of the year!!

CD is available at www.sjrecords.eu, www.jazzsound.pl, www.voiceshop.pl

Krzysztof Balkiewicz on the history of this album:

My Sweet European Homeland.

In October 1967, Krzysztof Komeda created the project Meine Süsse Europäische Heimat - My sweet European Homeland in Baden-Baden. As it turned out, this was Komeda's last European work - a symbolic farewell of the composer to Europe. The album Meine Süsse Europäische Heimat with songs to the lyrics of prominent Polish poets was released when Komeda was already in Hollywood working on the music for Roman Polanski's film Rosemary's Baby.

From the composer's correspondence with the album producer Joachim-Ernst Berendt, it emerged that more songs were created than appeared on the album. In the letter, Komeda asked Berendt to replace some compositions. Berendt refused - in his opinion, certain poems emphasized the European character of the album more. And that was the only trace of the existence of additional compositions... It seemed that these unknown compositions were lost forever. However, during a detailed archive search of Krzysztof Komeda's archives at the National Library in Warsaw, I was able to find, together with musicologist Justyna Raczkowska, a real treasure - manuscripts of six Komeda compositions from the project Meine Süsse Europäische Heimat that were not included on the mentioned vinyl record.

Regarding the project Meine Süsse Europäische Heimat, Komeda himself (known for his restrained approach to his work) said that it is his greatest work. Joachim-Ernst Berendt, in turn, wrote about Krzysztof Komeda's compositions: "We have never had such beautiful, rich, and emotionally full melodies on a record with poetry!".

After over half a century, we can admire the second, unknown part of Krzysztof Komeda's legendary project Meine Süsse Europäische Heimat. The album also includes one song already known from the previously released album - Po katastrofie, written to the poem Campo di Fiori by Czesław Miłosz.Piotr Schmidt undertook the task of developing Krzysztof Komeda's found manuscripts and arranging the music. The resulting works are outstanding. All the musicians captured the spirit of Komeda's creativity with incredible intuition. Piotr Schmidt and his friends paid tribute to Krzysztof Komeda in an absolutely unique way on the 90th anniversary of the composer's birth. It seems that our "European homeland" was waiting for this music...

Krzysztof Balkiewicz,

President of the Association for the Care of Krzysztof Komeda's Heritage, Artistic Director of the Love Polish Jazz Festival