June 17, 1972: Polish music revival, featuring Jan Lewandowski

 

Here’s the man who achieved renown as the Polka King back when he was still just a prince. More about him in the Footnote. 

June 17, 1972

Is Polish Music Revival

Shaping Up in Buffalo? 

“PLEASE EXCUSE me,” Jan Lewandowski says as the pierogi arrive. “I must eat before the show.”

There’s half an hour left before Jan and his two sidemen take the stage at Buffalo’s Polish Village on Broadway, so he turns to his plate while drummer Andrew Lochocki, who’s 31, tells how he knew Jan originally.

Seems they both were in intermediate music school together in the beautiful Baltic port city of Gdansk, back before they lost track of each other when they went on to separate colleges in Warsaw.

Andrew got into the University of Warsaw Music School, best music school in all Poland, and earned a PhD, while Jan took to a college of advanced drama.

* * *

HOW THEY MET again is something of a global coincidence. Until three years ago both had good arts-entertainment careers going in Poland.

        Andrew’s background was solid – playing with the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Warsaw Chamber Orchestra and the Warsaw State Opera Company for almost seven years. Percussion and French horn.

        Jan, on the other hand, was a budding East European superstar, kind of a Slavic Tom Jones.

        Building a new career now at the age of 29, he’d appeared in the film “Knife in the Water” (remember the blond hitchhiker in the beginning?), a musical film called “Two Hours Before Time,” had recorded six albums and had sung engagements in Bulgaria, the big town – Moscow – and even in Japan.

        Trouble was, he cracked political jokes on stage. The people liked them, but the authorities didn’t.

* * *

SO WHEN JAN came to Canada and married a Polish-Canadian girl, he decided to stay when his visitor’s visa ran out. He doesn’t think the authorities are happy about that, either.

        Oddly enough, Andrew left Poland almost the same way. His girl from Poland came to Canada, liked it and wanted to stay. He came to join her and married her.

        “I played for a couple of months for the St. Catharines Symphony,” he says. “I tried to get into the Toronto Symphony, but it’s hard. They only want native Canadians.

        “Fortunately, my wife works. She didn’t want me to do physical labor and give up my music.”

        The third member of the group, bearded accordion player Roman Pilarski, 34, came to Canada with his parents on invitation from their uncle. His father was a music teacher in a small town in central Poland.

        “He taught me in the beginning,” Roman says, “then he turned me over to other teachers. I played with my father in little groups in Toronto. I was working as a dental technician and playing weekends.

* * *

“I MET ANDREW through other Polish musicians and through them we both heard about this singer, Lewandowski.”

        They’ve been busy ever since they joined forces six months ago. Just finished a trans-Canada tour, Sundays they’re doing one-nighters in and around their home city, Toronto, and this stay at the Polish Village, their second, is scheduled to run Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights through the end of the year.

        The Polish Village’s new owner, wiry Stanley Salczynski, is enthusiastic about his contribution to what is shaping up to be a major Polish music revival in the Buffalo area.

        “Jan Lewandowski’s group shows slides which coincide with the music they’re playing,” he says. “It gives the people who left the old country a chance to see familiar … (words blurred and indistinct).

        “There’s a tremendous amount of them in the area – about 30,000 or 40,000 – and this is just about the only type of contemporary Polish entertainment available to them.”

        True, aside from parties and weddings, there are only a few stops locally on the Polish music circuit, but there’s more than a year ago. Chopin Club, Strand Ballroom, Ruda’s Records.

* * *

WXRL HAS weekend Polish shows by no fewer than four personalities – Stan Jasinski, Stan Sluberski, Big Steve and Walt Jaworski. Plus Denny Lesniak on WADV-FM. And there’s Happy Harry on WNIA, who’s even considering a daily Polish show. And Bob Mycek on WWOL.

        Among the most active promoters of Polish music locally are The Goral Boys. The seven-man group is one of the best in the city and they’ve sold, within two months, 1,900 copies locally of their first album. The title, “Make Room For Another Polka Giant,” was the headline on a TV Topics story about them last year.

        The Gorals tape segments of their Sunday night shows at the Polish Villa and rebroadcast them the following Sunday afternoons on WXRL, right after Stan Jasinski’s program.

        They play Thursdays at the Candlelite Room on Harlem Road and are scheduled to play two major polka conventions this summer, a Polka-bration in Ocean Beach, Conn., and the International Polka Association in Milwaukee.

* * *

THEY’RE TAKING bookings as far ahead as next year and are looking into possibilities of having their own local TV show.

        Their music differs sharply from Jan Lewandowski’s Show Band. “We get an entirely different crowd for the Gorals,” Stan Salczynski says.

        Jan is pure night-club, the way it would be in Poland or anywhere – warm personality and a sensual voice. The band switches as many as a dozen different instruments, the slides show Poland’s southern mountains, a Baltic coast scene, a street in Gdansk.

        They do tangos, waltzes, songs in English and a very fast brand of polka (“People who are used to American polka music can’t dance to it,” Stan Salczynski remarks). Jan steps over to the tables and chooses an overwhelmed blonde as a dancing partner.

        The Gorals, with fiddle, horns and guitars, play the robust popular Chicago polka style, which can be as bright and spirited as a country hoedown. In fact, the group leans over to borrow a few country songs, like “Never Ending Love for You.”

* * *

THE GORALS also are using their stature and experience to help other bands along. Working with Act-One Sound Studios, they plan to record Bob Krew’s band and a youngish six-man group called The Buffalo Brass, half of whom are just graduating from high school.

        Goral Boys Ken Machelski and John Gnojek have brought The Buffalo Brass to the Polish Village in coats and ties this night. Occasionally, they talk more like a rock band than a Polish group.

        Vocalist and accordion player Hank Jaworski and bass player Rick Tomczak started the band when their old group, The Rhythmaires, broke up in early 1971.

        Rick’s father books the group and Hank, whose parents come from the old country, sings most of the Polish numbers.

        For other things, like the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” or “Brown Sugar,” trumpet players John Kilian and Bob Wroblewski switch to guitar and bass respectively.

* * *

ROUNDING OUT the group are sax and clarinet man Jim Przepiora and drummer Paul Figlewski. Most of the Brass got into Polish music through hearing it at home and then via music store bands.

        “We play all over,” Hank says, “mostly weddings and parties. We want to go out of town and we think recording next month will help us along.”

        “Sometimes the other kids we know will laugh at us for playing Polish music,” John Kilian puts in, “but we’ve got money in our pockets.

        “I know rock bands that’re going into debt because they’ve bought all these expensive amps and can’t get enough jobs to pay for them.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTOS: Top, The Buffalo Brass, from left, front, Bob Wroblewski, Hank Jaworski and John Killian; rear, Jim Przepiora, Paul Figlewski and Rick Tomczak. Bottom, Jan Lewandowski Group, from left, Roman Pilarski, Jan Lewandowski and Andrew Lochocki.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Jan Lewandowski became a superstar on this side of the Atlantic, too. He relocated to Hazleton, in northeastern Pennsylvania, shortened his name to Jan Lewan, married a beauty queen, toured the nation and released nine albums. One of them, “Jan Lewan and His Orchestra,” earned him a nomination for a Grammy Award in 1995.

        He also became the subject of a pair of documentary films, thanks to a Ponzi scheme that sent him to jail for almost six years in the 2000s. He was portrayed by Jack Black in a 2018 Netflix film comedy, “The Polka King,” which was ready to be turned into a Broadway musical before the pandemic came along.

        Jan currently has a studio in his home in West Palm Beach, Fla. Go to his website and one of the things you can put in your cart there is a singing greeting from him, delivered by email, for any special occasion. He notes, “I will even add a personal touch by wishing him/her ‘Sto Lat’ after I finish singing.”

        Meanwhile, among the guys from the Buffalo Brass, Bob “Chaz” Wroblewski and John Kilian played horns with the Dynatones on their award-winning album, “Six Million Dollar Band.” Sadly, John died at age 33 in 1989.