Michaà  Urbaniak (22 January 1943 â 20 December 2025) was a Polish jazz musician who played violin, lyricon, and saxophone. His music includes elements of folk music, rhythm and blues, hip hop, and symphonic music.
Urbaniak was born in Warsaw, General Government on 22 January 1943. He started his music education during high school in à Âódà º, Poland, and continued from 1961 in Warsaw in the violin class of Tadeusz Wroà Âski. Learning to play on the alto saxophone alone, he first played in a Dixieland band, and later with Zbigniew Namysà Âowski and the Jazz Rockers, with whom he performed during the Jazz Jamboree festival in 1961. After this, he was invited to play with Andrzej Trzaskowski, and toured the United States in 1962 with the Andrzej Trzaskowski band, the Wreckers, playing at festivals and clubs in Newport, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City.
After returning to Poland, he worked with Krzysztof Komeda's quintet (1962âÂÂ1964). Together, they left for Scandinavia, where, after finishing a couple of contracts, Urbaniak remained until 1969. There he created a band with Urszula Dudziak and Wojciech Karolak, which gained considerable success and was later to be the starting point for Michaà  Urbaniak Fusion.
After Urbaniak returned to Poland agaIn and the violin (which he abandoned for the saxophone during the time in Scandinavia), he created the Michaà  Urbaniak Group, to which he invited, among others, Urszula Dudziak (vocals), Adam Makowicz (piano), Pawel Jarzebski â bass, and Czeslaw Bartkowski â drums. They recorded their first international albums, Parathyphus B, Instinct and played in many festivals, including Jazz Jamboree in 1969âÂÂ1972. During the Montreux 1971 festival, Urbaniak was awarded "Grand Prix" for the best soloist and received a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. After many triumphant concerts in Europe and the United States, in May 1973 he played for the last time before a Polish audience and emigrated with Urszula Dudziak on 11 September 1973, to the United States, where he lived as a U.S. citizen.
Despite getting an award from Berklee, he did not study there. Recommended by John H. Hammond, Urbaniak signed a contract with Columbia Records, who published the West German album Super Constellation under the name Fusion. For the tour, he invited Polish musicians, including Czesà Âaw Bartkowski, Paweà  JarzÃÂbski, and Wojciech Karolak. In 1974, Urbaniak formed the band Fusion and introduced melodic and rhythmic elements of Polish folk music into his funky New York-based music. With this band Urbaniak recorded another album for Columbia in New York: Atma.
Urbaniak followed his musical journey with innovative projects such as Urbanator (the first band to fuse rap and hip-hop in jazz), Urbanizer (a project with his band and four-piece R&B vocal group, 1978) and UrbSymphony. On 27 January 1995, UrbSymphony performed and recorded a concert with a rapper and a 60-piece symphony orchestra.
From 1970 on, Urbaniak played his custom-made, five-string violin furnished especially for him, a violin synthesizer nicknamed "talking" violin; soprano, alto and tenor saxophones; and lyricon, an electric saxophone-like horn. His fusion with a hint of folklore was becoming popular among American jazz musicians. He started to play in well known clubs such as the Village Vanguard and Village Gate and in famous concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Beacon Theatre, and Avery Fisher Hall.
Urbaniak played with Billy Cobham, Buster Williams, Chick Corea, Harold Ivory Williams, Elvin Jones, Freddie Hubbard, George Benson, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Joe Zawinul, Kenny Barron, Larry Coryell, Lenny White, Marcus Miller, Quincy Jones, Ron Carter, Roy Haynes, Vladyslav Sendecki, Wayne Shorter, and Weather Report. In 1985, he was invited to play during the recording of Tutu with Miles Davis.
In 2012, he acted in the Polish film My Father's Bike.
Urbaniak died on 20 December 2025, at the age of 82.
With Urszula Dudziak
With others