Wojciech Karolak, born on May 28, 1939 in Warsaw, was a Polish jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger best known for playing the Hammond B-3 organ. He began his career in 1958 as an alto saxophonist with Jazz Believers and later played with Andrzej Trzaskowski’s The Wreckers before switching to piano in 1961. He formed the Karolak Trio in 1962, played with the Andrzej Kurylewicz Quintet and Polish Jazz Quartet, and appeared on Kurylewicz’s Go Right (1963). Karolak moved to Scandinavia in 1966, where he increasingly focused on the Hammond organ and electric piano and worked with musicians including Michał Urbaniak. After returning to Poland in 1973, he co-founded Mainstream with Jan “Ptaszyn” Wróblewski and recorded Easy! (1974). In 1984, he formed Time Killers with Tomasz Szukalski and Czesław Bartkowski, releasing Time Killers (1985), which was later selected by Jazz Forum critics as the best Polish jazz album of the 1980s. Karolak continued recording and performing, notably collaborating with guitarist Jarosław Śmietana. He received the Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis in 2007 and the Złoty Fryderyk for lifetime achievement in jazz in 2010. Karolak died on June 23, 2021, at the age of 82.
