SOLO ARTIST

Michał Urbaniak

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JazzFunkFolkHip-Hop

Michał Urbaniak was a musician who combined several roles within one career on a scale that is still unusual, virtuoso violinist, saxophonist, composer, bandleader, producer, and inventor of his own sound technologies. In Polish music history, he stands not only as a jazz star but also as one of the very few Polish artists who genuinely helped shape the language of New York fusion. He was born on 22 January 1943 in Warsaw and grew up in Łódź, where he studied violin in music school while teaching himself saxophone. By the late 1950s he was already playing in the Łódź bands Tiger Rag and Modern Combo, and after beginning violin studies in Warsaw he quickly entered the modern jazz environment through...

Warszawa

Artist Trivia

Urbaniak was one of the first musicians in the world to make broad creative use of the lyricon, an electronic wind instrument, alongside custom violin and synthesizer setups.
He developed the “talking violin” effect, a way of modulating violin phrases with the human voice, which became one of his signature sonic ideas.
He worked with Miles Davis on the album “Tutu” and, according to the cited source, remains the only violinist to have collaborated with Davis in that kind of studio context.
As early as 1971, he was named best soloist at the Montreux Jazz Festival, one of the major international breakthroughs achieved by a Polish jazz artist of that era.

Real NameMichał Edmund Michałowski

FromWarszawa

Born1943-01-22

Died2025-12-20

Active since1961