Krzysztof Zawadzki - drums (leader and founder of the band)
Adam Wendt - tenor saxophone
Rafał Stępień - keyboards
Tomasz Grabowy - bass guitar
Walk Away - a Polish fusion band existing since 1985, repeatedly voted ‘best jazz band of the year’ by the readers of Jazz Forum magazine. Walk Away has played at all the world's major festivals and regularly collaborates with stars such as Urszula Dudziak, Mike Stern, Eric Marienthal and Bill Evans. The group will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2025: Krzysztof Zawadzki, Bernard Maseli, Tomasz Grabowy, Adam Wendt.The band was formed on the initiative of Krzysztof Zawadzki, a percussionist, then a student at the Jazz and Popular Music Department of the Music Academy in Katowice. The band's first line-up also included Zawadzki's fellow students: vibraphonist Bernard Maseli, saxophonist Adam Wendt, double bassist Jacek Niedziela and pianist Zbigniew Jakubek.After just a few months of rehearsals, the band won first prize at the international festival ‘Jazz on the Oder’, the ‘Key to Career’, or the main prize of the Pomeranian Jazz Autumn. Walk Away also played at the Jazz Jamboree 85, and won the title of ‘new hope’ in the annual poll of the Jazz Forum magazine.The year 1986 brought intensive concert tours throughout Poland and abroad (including participation in the festival of young talents in Leverkusen). It was also then that Walk Away recorded its first album for the West German label Emsherland. In 1987-88, the band collaborated with female vocalists: Lora Szafran and Urszula Dudziak. With Dudziak, they recorded the concert album ‘Magic Lady’ and toured all over Europe. The collaboration with Dudziak continues to this day. In the following years, the band also performed with singer Ewa Bem and violinist Michał Urbaniak. An episode in the band's history from 1990 was its participation as support on Miles Davis's concert tour of Germany.The band has won the title of best Polish jazz band several times, awarded by the readers of Jazz Forum (among others in 1987, 1995 and 1996). On the tenth anniversary of the band's formation, the band, under Zawadzki's direction, prepared a superproduction, the 1994 album F/X, for which the following outstanding jazz musicians from the USA were invited: Mike Stern - guitar (ex. Miles Davis, Steps Ahead), Eric Marienthal - saxophone (Chick Corea's collaborator), Mino Cinelu - drums (ex. Miles Davis, Weather Report, Sting, Bruce Springsteen). Urszula Dudziak and Mieczysław Szcześniak sang on the album. The album F/X was nominated for Jazz Album of the Year in the 1995 Fryderyki competition. Since 2022, after reactivation, the band has been touring again. A Jubilee Concert Tour has been announced for 2025.
26.10.2025 / Sunday / 19:00 / Sala Koncertowa JCK Ulica Bankowa / Walk Away
