On Friday, October 27th, at Miłostowo Poznań Cemetery, the ceremony of the late 21st of that period was held by the vocalist and composer associated mainly with Niebiesko-Czarnia band – Wojciech Kędziora, known by Kord's nickname.
Korda suffered from further strokes for many years. In fresh times his condition was so severe that all who knew the situation expected information about his death at any time. Eventually, surrounded by the caring care of Aldona's wife, he went to eternity.
Wojtek Korda was a legend of Polish bigbit and will stay specified a legend. Unfortunately, present mostly forgotten legend. If it is known present by the alleged mass recipient, it is most likely only from the unmerciful usage of the Motu voucher and at the same time the title of the 1965 large hit – the song "Niedziela Will Be For Us". Contamination and oblivion are due to many factors. And since the Blue-Blacks disappeared from tv after their transformation into a strictly stone band in 1968 they ceased to be well-perceived by the amusement drivers of that time, and consequently, they practically disappeared from tv (with tiny exceptions they stopped making films promoting N-C songs, which in later times were called video clips), with festivals (after the only performance in Kolobrzeg 1970, N-C and Korda met with criticism of factors for the kind of music and form of expression), and besides in the phonograph marketplace they had expanding problems, as besides random events occurred.
Meanwhile, the presence at festivals (recorded by tv in the 1970s), films promoting works and many phonographic publications besides decide present about the preservation of old stars in the memory of the audience. In addition, there is simply a specificity of the Polish music criticism environment, which since the aspiration of punk and Polish stone (not always worthy of that name) from the 1980s clearly depreciates, apart from exceptions specified as Niemen, Skaldów or SBB, performers from the contractual bigbit era. Of course, an nonsubjective origin is important, that is, the passage of time and bringing that musical era to a simplified mix of the most catchy hits.
It is actual that the Blue-Blacks were formed in the era of Polish stone and rotation pioneers, which, for purely artistic reasons, can rise a grin today. After all, in the first band of this type, Rythm and Blues, there was small R&B, and the second band, or Red-Black, was always just a group of highly frequently changing musicians accompanying a wide group of vocalists. Thus, he had neither kind nor direction, although present it can be said, naturally generating that it was infantile style, both in terms of lyrics ("painted doll", "The Ladybugs are in dots" and mass of others), as well as music, at least in the time of the most popular C-C, in the first half of the 1960s.
Against this background, the Niebiesko-Czarni were formed immediately as a squad with a mission in the form of initially very naive adaptation of folk works and the motto "Polish youth sing Polish songs". They besides did not avoid the sin of having a number of eclectic singers, but at least they became a hatchery of authentic talents, as Krzysztof Klenczon, Włodzimierz Wander, Andrzej Nebeski, Piotr Janczerski or Czesław Niemen (whose most of the popular and recognizable hit repertoire was created in the N-C era) who achieved immense successes after leaving the band. It was with these musicians that the talent of Wojtek Korda was perfected. Born in 1944 in Poznań, postgraduate of Geodesy-Road Technology, as a kid he sang in the celebrated choir Stefan Stoligrosz. In 1962, he was awarded the Golden Dozens of 1st Talents Music Festival in Szczecin, where he sang “English by ear” the then rockandroll hits by Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. In January 1964 Korda recorded his first professional track “Innocent Thief” with the band Bogusław Klimczuk, and shortly after became a associate of the Blue-Black band, mostly as a vocalist, but besides as a rhythm guitarist. During this time, he frequently performed in duet with Czesław Niemen (mostly live, but besides recordings like the Beatles' “A hard Day’s Night” and “The Fog”). His first large hit was the song Jack Game (i.e. Franciszek Walicki, creator and then manager of N-C) "Tell her."
In 1965, he recorded the aforementioned “Niedziela” (repeated in the harsher version in 1966 on LP “Blue-Black”) and very interesting adaptations and interpretations of folk works and stylized into folk works, specified as “Hey sharp water” and “Hey there in the valley” (S. Hadyna). Since 1966 Korda left with the band, among others, on routes after the west of Europe (France, Netherlands), where he encountered the latest trends in pop/rock music at the time. The first effect of this was the LP “Alarm” which, in my opinion, is the most outstanding work of the bigbit current, which at the same time clearly escapes from this current (a departure from infantile texts, a large progression of instrumental skills, the addition of a wind section). Korda sings on the album hits – “Adagio Cantabile”, “I met her once” and “The holidays are over”, but besides the crazy song “Hey boys, come back to the country”. After this album, the N-C band is transformed into a stone band with only 2 singers – Korda and his later wife Ada Rusovich, and a fixed duo of wind instruments. On the LP “We have flowers for you” of 1968 N-C introduce elements of psychedelia, references to children's flowers and Hendrix guitar climates (“We have flowers for you” and another stylized track “Hey comes young boy”).
On the occasion of the N-C, they evidence an "hendrix" EP with the track "Purple Haze" at the head. A immense change in the way Korda sings and large English strikes. After recording another LP “Fwarze” in 1969 (e.g. “Flowers do not grow on concrete”) N-C decide to take a hard step towards progressive stone and hard rock. This can be seen both in many recordings for Polish Radio, specified as “I like boots with uppers” (Kordy, Rusowicz singing), conventional “Kavalira” (Rusowicz), “Joanna d’Arc” (Rusowicz), “Oround me with your arm” (Rusowicz), “Fatamorgana” (Rusowicz), “When the origin will break through” (Rusowicz), “Andrea Doria” (Korda), “Lot on Venus” (Korda, radio, dense 7-minute version), “Nicolaus” (Korda, a song devoted to Copernicus), “Stay a Dream” (Korda), and completely forgotten superb hard stone blues “Crests on the Wind” (Korda, over 7 minutes of music crowned with rock-waveset Wojtek). The N-C in late 1970 embark on a cruise to the United States. The visit to the States is simply a catalyst for the thought of creating Polish stone opera.
A 1972 version of Naga's stone opera, released on 2 LPs, is hard to make. In 1973, a band with a guest in individual Stan Boris Goes to Poland with Naga. The avant-garde phase plan is liable for the artist and graphic artist Jerzy Krechovich, amazing, multifaceted lyrics to songs is written by a poet Grzegorz Walczak. The phase version is recorded in November 1973, but a random accident destroys almost all the effort of prepared cassettes. It is Naga with the dense sound of Hammond Zbigniew Podgajny, guitar by Janusz Popławski (who besides plays on it with a smik a la Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin) and the amazing vocals of Korda, Boris and Rusowicz most brings the band closer to progressive rock. Even Jazz Jamboree ’73 is hospitable.
The last N-C years are shrinking for the stone band a place on the non-rock scene of the then pop. The failure of plans to grow with Naga outside Poland, scandalous from the point of view of the past of Polish music, the deficiency of registration of audiovisual stone opera, all this makes the band get out of the air. These years fill mostly long routes around the russian Union, where the squad is welcomed enthusiastically. After the 1976 N-C tour, they quit, although the historical origin query allowed to establish that until 1978 inclusive, the squad led by Korda then performed in the USSR inactive as Blue-Black. In the fresh period of N-C activities have cooperated, among others, with Ms Agnieszka Osiecka ("Singing Praise", "Our Mother") and Ernest Bryll (a track by Korda "Dip in the Evening" to Bryll's poem has not yet been found).
After the end of the business, Korda and Rusowicz, greedy commercial success made a highly controversial decision to evidence a pop album in the disco kind popular in the second half of the 1970s. The album came out late erstwhile disco was already losing its meaning and certainly, despite the popularity of any songs, was a sharp gnash in stone biography so far, especially Wojtek Kordy. Korda then came off the Polish stage. He performed “for bread” abroad, including long years with an excellent guitarist Dariusz Kozakiewicz.
The chance to return to the Polish phase and to the audience's consciousness were Old stone gathering concerts in 1986/87, invented and realized by Franciszek Walicki. Indeed, Korda presented himself on them as a star with excellent vocal capabilities, especially compared to many another then reminded performers of the bigbit era. And yet again, something went wrong. Korda, then a man barely 42 years old, unnecessarily stopped in a niche called “Dinosaurus”. There was no idea, no repertoire, which would not be a akin mistake to disco. On the plus side of Kordy, you gotta say that he never went down to the level of the first disco-polo wave, which even performers like Krzysztof Krawczyk. Unfortunately, Korda's CD with Dariusz Kozakiewicz The 1991 "joys and sorrows" (recorded after the death of Ada Rusowicz in a car accident) did not meet expectations, both regarding composition quality and sound with besides much keyboard participation.
Later, Korda recorded only occasionally, inactive forced to execute for maintenance. As the most outstanding of his recordings in fresh years, I consider 2 beautiful deep baritone Christmas songs – melancholy “How to grieve how to enjoy” and “Sleeping Jesus Sleep”. And then there were voice problems and yet the strokes mentioned at the beginning. At 1 point, after intensive rehabilitation, it seemed that Korda would inactive return to the stage. Unfortunately, the strokes then struck with double force. Friends and fellow musicians organized concerts and dropouts for Wojtek, trying to aid in various ways. In Łódź he conducted specified a performance in the Łódź home of Culture. Andrzej Frajndt Partita.
In January 2014, Wojciech Korda was decorated by president Bronisław Komorowski with the Golden Cross of Merit "Emergency in Activities for Cultural Development" and "Artificial Achievements", along with another prominent figures of the Bigbit era.
At the end of the article about Wojtek Korda I will answer you a question that will most likely arise erstwhile reading it – why I, known to you mainly from political, historical articles, am writing about the deceased. I'm in a hurry to explain. Music, including Polish and abroad stone and post-prock music, is just another of my passions, which I owe to my Father. And Blue-Black and Wojciech Korda are especially dear to me. A fewer years ago I made contact with Paweł Navara, a man- orchestra – musician, originator, publisher and head of Kameleon Records publishing house, who, for his ideas, accepted the restoration of the memory from the darkness of Polish music of the bigbit period, including the first time publishing works that have never been released on any medium, and be in archives. Of course, Mr Navara undertook the thought of releasing the Blue and Black acquis with enthusiasm. After many months and years of research, 5 CDs have been released (because the subject is not closed – I have an thought for at least 3 more albums, 1 of the remaining ones to release N-C material and 2 with Wojtek's solo recordings), 5 CDs with, in the vast majority, absolute rarities (with the 5th album being concert). My participation, in addition to helping to search for and compile songs, was to compose texts to the books accompanying each of these releases, in which I was able to include, I believe, many interesting, unknown and unremembered information about the band today, about Wojtek Kord and Ada Rusowicz.
Wojciech Korda will surely stay in our kind memory – he deserves this with his outstanding vocal talent, but besides with his achievements. They'll stay with us all day. His songs – those that are known and those that were extracted from archives, among others, by Kameleon Records. And may they service this simple pleasance of listening, but may they besides be a origin of inspiration for actual lovers of good music. I urge you – if you can find it – a part by Wojtek from 1983, recorded in Łódź with the orchestra of Henryk Debich "There are specified tears unnecessary to anyone". This is according to the American classification of the music of the alleged Adult contemporary, i.e. it can be said pop, but the highest attempt, and besides with beautiful reflective text. Let his fragment be the culmination of this memory.
He's waiting a day behind the door.
So you get up and go.
You twist the key in the lock without saying a word
And you keep moving again
♪ all breath ♪
There are tears
No 1 Needs
When You Can't Forgive
Or change anything.
There are tears
No 1 Needs
When life doesn't go back
No doorbell
(p. Andrzej Sobczak)
Adam Laughter
Photo: authoritative profile of fb Wojciech Korda
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