Zbigniew Namysłowski is a gradute of music schools in Kraków and Warsaw, he learnt there how to play the piano and then the cello. He made debut in 1957 in Student Club Hybrydy and then at the Jazz Music Festival in Sopot. He played the trombone in famous Polish dixieland bands. After discovering modern jazz, he gave up traditional jazz, and started playing the alto saxophone which soon became his leading instrument. He was with Andrzej Trzaskowski's band The Wreckers until 1963, travelling to the United States for the first U.S. concerts by a Polish jazz band, taking part in the prestigious festival in Newport in 1962. At the same time, he fulfilled his own artistic plans. He founded his first major band, Jazz Rockers, in 1961, and further bands in subsequent years.

In 1978 he travelled to the United States where he gave concerts mainly with Michał Urbaniak and Urszula Dudziak, returning to Poland two years later. He performed at the Polish Radio Jazz Studio, with the Chałturnik Association in Support of True Creativity (SPPT Chałturnik), Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski's group as well as working with the Novi Singers during their tour of India, New Zealand and Australia, and the bands Niebiesko-Czarni and Niemen Enigmatic. With his own bands, he performed at all the major jazz festivals at home and abroad, for example taking part in almost all the Jazz Jamborees. In all, he has performed across Europe and in the United States, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Kuwait, and South Africa.

He recorded more than 40 author's records. Many of them were published abroad, ex.: Lola (1964) the first Polish record published abroad or Song Of The Pterodactil with famous drummer Tony Williams. Records Winobranie (1973) and Kuyaviak Goes Funky (1975) became super jazz hits in Poland and were voted the best records of all times in Polish jazz. Namyslowski has been working with such great jazzmen as Włodzimierz Gulgowski, Tadeusz Wójcik, Czesław Bartkowski, Adam Matyszkowicz, Janusz Kozłowski, Roman Dyląg, Jon Christensen, Stanisław Cieślak, Tomasz Szukalski, Paweł Jarzębski, Kazimierz Jonkisz, Wojciech Karolak, Sławomir Kulpowicz, Janusz Stefański, Kuba Stankiewicz, Darek Oleszkiewicz, Jose Torres, Janusz Skowron, Zbigniew Wegehaupt, and Cezary Konrad. He has performed with Leszek Możdżer and Zbigniew Wegehaupt since 1993.

He has been a composer since the 1960s. He likes to combine jazz with ethnic and classical music. In recent years he has recorded CDs with a highlander band and jazz versions of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.