Legacy Part One
Yesterday would have been my Grandpa’s 107th birthday, and the nostalgia hit me hard. We lost him in 1998 during my freshman year in college, and the older I get, the more grateful I am for my whole family and the gifts I’ve been given.
My Grandpa Stas Jaworski was born in Rhode Island in 1918, but moved back to Poland with his family shortly after that. He grew up in Poland but came to the US alone in 1937 at the age of 19 to join the US Army. He first served in the Panama Canal and then joined the Allied Forces liberating France and Belgium. He then fought in Germany until V-E Day.
When he returned to the US after the war, he sought to continue his musical training and studied opera at Columbia University in New York. He appeared in performances at City Center and numerous recitals throughout his training. At the end of the 1940’s, he formed his own orchestra, and the group, made up of high caliber instrumentalists from the city, made over 150 recordings and played dances and events in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia for more than forty years.
These days, descendants of those stellar musicians and Polish music afficionados are digitizing the Stas Jaworski Orchestra’s music, which is super crazy cool. By the time I was a little kid, the band was not playing nearly as much as they had in their biggest heyday, but one of our family traditions was a big Polish-American Labor Day picnic, with a bandstand and a dance floor, and a ton of strangers dancing to grandpa and the band. It was kind of crazy to me as a kid. I had no real appreciation of how bonkers good this band was and how skilled these players were. Check out the first track on this soundcloud playlist and listen to the clarinets and the casual triple-tonguing in the trumpets. What the heck?!
He was also just my grandpa, and he was a big tall guy with a great accent. He smoked cigars and watched the Mets, and he would give you a dollar when he came to visit if you had a picture of him in your wallet. When he wanted my grammy, he had a way of calling out her name in this big booming voice: “MA-RaYY!”
A year after his passing, my dad wrote this tribute that appeared in the Asbury Park Press which I think sums up the whole thing pretty well. Rest in Peace, Stas, keep them dancing, and thank you for all that you have given us.
