Bolingbrook Man Behind New Jack Black Netflix Movie

BOLINGBROOK, IL - A Bolingbrook man has a major role in "The Polka King," the hot new Netflix movie starring Jack Black that was released on Friday. Stephen Kaminski served as the musical director for the Jan Lewan Orchestra for 13 years until Lewan's incarceration led to the band's folding. The new movie stars Jack Black playing Jan Lewan (pronounced Yahn Leh vahn). The Polka band leader went to prison in 2004 after being involved in orchestrating a Ponzi scheme.

Kaminski spoke with Patch from New York City about the new Netflix movie, his own love of Polka music and what it's like to find himself now immersed in the national media spotlight. To mark the kick off of "The Polka King," the 52-year-old music composer who lives in Bolingbrook appeared with Jack Black on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Wednesday and the "Today Show" on Thursday.

Patch asked what Kaminski wants people across Illinois to take away from the new movie.

"Polka, in general, is still alive and well in the Chicagoland area," Kaminski said. "Locally, there are a lot of working Polka bands in the Chicago area that I would encourage people to look into."

Jack Black and Bolingbrook's Stephen Kaminski

According to a release about the new Netflix movie, "Many of the band members, under the direction of Kaminski, reunited in New York City in July 2016 when they along with Jack Black recorded the soundtrack for the movie. Kaminski wrote and arranged many of the songs heard on the soundtrack released on iTunes."

Kaminski grew up on the East Coast in Edison, N.J. and later moved to South Brunswick, he told Patch. He became a talented music writer at a young age, and that's how he became acquainted with the real-life Jan Lewan.

"I wrote for him and played for him, off and on, for the next 20 years," Kaminski said.

In 2014, Kaminski and his wife, Lynn, decided to move to the Chicago area. They settled in Bolingbrook. They have no regrets, he said.

Stephen Kaminski and his wife Lynn

"We really like it," Kaminski said. "It's a nice area and the people are real friendly. And, the Chicagoland has a big Polish population, and lots of musicians."

Patch asked the Bolingbrook music composer what he thought of Jack Black as Lewan. (The three men posed together for the main photo that accompanied this article.)

"When I heard Jack Black, I thought, you know what, Jack Black had everything needed to portray Jan Lewan very well. He has the music talents and the vocal chops to pull this off. I felt it was a good match."

"We were pleasantly surprised at how well Jack Black sang Polish as the original Jan," Kaminski said, explaining how the music Lewan played was more of an Eastern-style big band type of Polka.

"Jack picked it up real fast," Kaminski said.

For "The Polka King," the band recordings with Jack Black took place at The Power Station in New York City.

"The whole band, we got the recordings done in just two days in the studio," Kaminski said. "Normally, that should take a week or two."

You might be surprised to learn that Kaminski did not have an opportunity to view the entire movie before it was released today, on Jan. 12.

He said his name will appear several times in the movie credits including a clip showing him playing with Jan Lewan and the original Polka band.

"You'd see me at the very end in the credits," Kaminski said.

At the beginning of the movie's filming in 2016, it became apparent that the Hollywood film crew wasn't exactly experts on the art of Polka music.

"Hollywood had no clue as to what Polka music was all about," Kaminski explained. "I kind of had to educate them on the different styles of Polish music."

In a way, the movie experience was surreal for Kaminski.

It brought him back to his days of writing Polka music nearly 30 years ago.

"These were the songs I had written when I was 23," Kaminski told Patch on Thursday night. "It was such an emotional moment for me in the studio."

Inquiring minds want to know, will "The Polka King" be looked back years from now as a memorable iconic movie featured on Netflix?

The Bolingbrook music composer with a huge role in making it all happen believes it has great potential.

"I think it's a quirky, unbelievable story and it's going to do well," he predicted. "Jack Black has a lot of fans out there. This is one of those standout movies that is unlike anything else out there."

What's he's up now?

These days, Stephen Kaminski plays in two local Chicago-area Polka bands, the Freezedried Band, as well as The D Street Band. Both Polka bands feature several members who are from Will County, he noted. Kaminski also wanted Patch readers to know there are two major Internet radio stations that feature Polka music 24 hours a day. One www.247polkaheaven.com and the other is polkajammernetwork.org.

To visit Stephen Kaminski's website, go here.

Images provided to Patch via Stephen Kaminski, movie trailer The Polka King via YouTube