Polish jazz great Jan 'Ptaszyn' Wróblewski has died at the age of 88. Ptak, sometimes dubbed Poland's Bird, was a saxophonist, bandleader, broadcaster and Polish Radio says that he died in Warsaw yesterday aged 88. For many years as well as regularly gigging and recording he broadcast Trzy quadranse jazzu (Three Quarters of Jazz) on Polish Radio. His last show went out on Monday.

Ptaszyn in his youth played with the ultimate icon of jazz in Poland the pianist and composer Krzysztof Komeda and debuted in Komeda's band on baritone saxophone in 1956 as a member of the sextet of the future composer of Knife in the Water. Also in the 1950s Ptaszyn was a Polish representative at the Newport Jazz Festival in America. He led many bands down the years and collaborated with among others all the greats of Polish jazz including Tomasz Stańko, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Michał Urbaniak, Zbigniew Seifert, Andrzej Trzaskowski and Adam Makowicz.

Paweł Brodowski, editor-in-chief of Polish jazz bible Jazz Forum on the culture.pl website wrote of Wróblewski: ''It may be hard to believe, but when Jan 'Ptaszyn' Wróblewski started playing music, jazz was censored in Poland. As a result of Stalin’s cultural politics that governed what kinds of art and culture could be consumed in the country, anything that may have been associated with western imperialism was formally excluded from public life. However, these rigid policies only made jazz more appealing, leading many young people across the country, like Ptaszyn, to fall in love with it. After Stalin’s death in 1953, Ptaszyn entered the newly re-born jazz scene with a bang and quickly became the epitome of the genre. Not only one of Polish jazz’s most brilliant musicians, Ptaszyn is also seen by many as its voice.''