[1] He is best known for writing the scores for Roman Polanski’s films Knife in the Water (1962), Cul-de-sac (1966), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), and Rosemary’s Baby (1968).
British critic Stuart Nicholson describes the album as "marking a shift away from the dominant American approach with the emergence of a specific European aesthetic.
[4] He chose Komeda as his stage name only upon graduation from university as a means of distancing himself as a jazz musician from his daytime job in a medical clinic.
[9] Komeda explored the theory of music, and learned to play piano, during this period and later, until 1950; however, he was aware of the loss of the past six years.
Jam sessions, in which such musicians as Matuszkiewicz, Borowiec, Walasek and Kujawski himself participated, took place in Witold's small apartment in Kraków.
He worked for some time with the first, postwar, pioneer Polish jazz band, a group called Melomani that was from Kraków and Łódź, whose mainstays were Matuszkiewicz, Trzaskowski and Kujawski.
Krzysztof Trzciński used the stage name 'Komeda' for the first time when he worked at a laryngological clinic, and wanted to conceal his interest in jazz from co-workers.
Jazz was beginning its struggle for respectability with the communist authorities in the era of "The Thaw" and with Polish society and was gradually recognized by both.
[10] In the thirteen years after the I Sopot Jazz Festival, the artistic personality of Krzysztof Trzciński became more mature, crystallized and lyrically poetic.
Komeda was a constantly searching poet who could find ways of individual expression of himself within jazz, Slavic lyricism, European sensibility and in the traditions of Polish music.
Scores for the films of Roman Polanski such as Knife in the Water (1962), of Andrzej Wajda such as Innocent Sorcerers (1960), and of Janusz Morgenstern Good Bye, Till Tomorrow (also 1960) were created.
[17] Roman Polański mentioned in his memoirs that as a result of friendly rough-and-tumble with Marek Hłasko, Komeda fell down and suffered head injuries.
[20] In 2010, the National Bank of Poland issued a commemorative coin dedicated to Komeda in the "Polish Popular Music" series.