Tomasz Szukalski

The career of Tomasz Szukalski began in the late 60s, when he joined some big bands, jazz orchestras and accompanying jazz bands: Partita, Janusz Muniak, Tomasz Ochalski, Big Band Stodola, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Wlodzimierz Nahorny, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, Chalturnik, Novi Singers. In the mid 70s, a very fruitful collaboration with trumpeter Tomasz Stanko started, followed by experiments with the legendary polish rock band SBB and finally in 1977 Tomasz together with Slawomir Kulpowicz, Pawel Jarzebski and Janusz Stefanski formed The Quartet also touring the United States. The polish martial law stopped and destroyed many artistic activities, nonetheless Tomasz recorded calm American standards with the orchestra of Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, world class fusion with his old friends Wojciech Karolak and Czeslaw Bartkowski and formed his own new Quartet with Artur Dutkiewicz, Marek Stach and Andrzej Cudzich. After the martial law Tom continued the collaboration with his old friend Wojciech Karolak and started a long lasting fruitful relationship with a young pianist Artur Dutkiewicz. The nineties and the new century were also full of sessions with many well known polish artists: Anna Maria Jopek, Aga Zaryan, Wojciech Majewski, Grzegorz Karnas, Tadeusz Nalepa, Tomasz Stanko, Piotr Wojtasik. Tomasz formed many ad-hoc bands of his own: Duo Sz-Sz with Janusz Szprot, a band with the french trumpet player Alain Brunet, Tomasz Szukalski - Jarek Smietana Quartet and others. Tom's last great live tours took place in 2007 with Apostolis Anthimos Quartet featuring Arild Andersen and Krzysztof Dziedzic and in 2008 with Apostolis Anthimos Quartet featuring Arild Andersen and Janusz Skowron.