Irena Santor & Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski - Zakochana w śnie (2025)

Gold and Diamonds from the Polish Radio Archives: Eight sensationally discovered songs recorded by Irena Santor in 1973-74 with Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski and jazz musicians.

The Polish Radio Jazz Studio, from which Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski recruited the musicians who formed the core of the orchestra accompanying Irena Santor, was a unique ensemble in Europe. The saxophonist, leader, composer, arranger, and conductor used to keep two, three, even four magpies by the tail. In the 1970s, the Jazz Studio was his training ground, workshop, and repository: for personnel configurations, conventions, and ideas. He also accompanied vocalists, though then—as in this case—not under his own proud banner, but instead joining forces with musicians from the Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw.

Irena Santor recalls: "I recall my collaboration with Ptaszyn and his wonderful virtuosos with emotion and pride! How much I learned from them! How different it was! The uniqueness of our jazz-oriented songs lay, among other things, in the fact that no one expected me to sing jazz. They played their way, and I sang in my style, and somehow it all intertwined beautifully."

The repertoire of the album "Zakochana w śnie" (in love with a dream) (the title was personally chosen by Irena Santor, and it is also the only song composed by Ptaszyn) consists of songs discovered in the Polish Radio archives more than half a century after their composition. Why haven't they seen the light of day before? Statistics provide the answer: Irena's official album credits include twenty-seven full-length albums and forty-eight singles and maxi-singles. In the 1970s alone, nine LPs were released with her name on the cover! The recording industry couldn't keep up with the artistic activity of the first lady of Polish song. The music, created for a few radio airplays at most, clearly had to wait until a time when bold stylistic fusions were valued most highly.