Jazz has been present in Torun’s Od Nowa since the beginning of 50-year existence of the club. As a Jazz Club, it was a third place in Poland with regular jazz concerts, right after Cracow and Warsaw. At the end of 80s, Jazz Club stopped existing and was reborn in October, 1994. Trough the following years there have been over 400 concerts of the most famous Polish and foreign jazzmen. Nowadays, Od Nowa is probably the only student club in Poland where jazz concerts regularly take place.

The result of the jazz activity of the club is the JAZZ Od Nowa Festival created in 2001. Made by Student Club of Creative Work Od Nowa, the festival is a one of the youngest Polish jazz festivals, which was placed in a calendar of regular jazz events, gaining more and more jazz fans. The aim of the festival is to please the taste of faithful jazz admirers and to popularize jazz among the young people. The Jazz Od Nowa Festival is known for its perfectly considered and consequent formula combining the classic of jazz (and its leading representatives) with an improvised music spreading to the jazz avant-garde.

A history of the festival has been created by the participating artists. A list of the leading jazzmen who had performed in Od Nowa is impressive – it contains Polish jazz stars such as Michał Urbaniak, Tomasz Stańko, Adam Makowicz, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, Leszek Możdżer, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Janusz Muniak, Wojciech Karolak, Piotr Wojtasik, Jarek Śmietana, Włodzimierz Nahorny and guests from USA and Europe such as: Hiram Bullock, Victor Lewis, David Friesen, Giovanni Mirabassi, Peter Brötzmann.

The strong point of the festival is also an incredible atmosphere during the concerts.

A jazz legend of Torun’s festivals became an unforgettable jam session lasting till dawn with American guitarist, Hiram Bullock and a Torun’s pianist, Bogdan Hołownia.

You can follow the history of the Jazz Od Nowa Festival by browsing the previous years programmes.