Half Czech-in, part 1

Emil Viklický - Trochu funky (The Funky Way) [sample]
from album "Okno", 1980, Supraphon 11152754
composed & arranged by Emil Viklický, produced by Antonín Matzner


original LP sleeve (front/back)

Welcome to the Half Czech-In, an irregular "sub-series" of Funky Czech-In posts, devoted to international funky outings with some sort of Czech or Slovak participation - or vice versa. There are quite a lot of records to choose from, so besides of less known or even absolutely obscure names (Gyulli Chokheli, anyone?) you can also expect to meet renown artists like Jan Hammer jr. or Miroslav Vitouš as well as a couple of their even more famous international colleagues.

This first example comes from the second solo album by jazz pianist Emil Viklický. You might have already seen that name on this blog, he was the keyboard player on Energit's first record. He played with Karel Velebný's SHQ and was a member of the legendary Klávesová konkláva (The Keyboard Conclave); both groups will be covered in future posts. For more details check out Viklický's English biography. Besides of that, he was also one of those few lucky guys who were allowed to study in the U.S. in the seventies, where he spent a year at the Berklee College of Music. Back in Prague, in the summer of 1979 some of his new friends from the States dropped by to say hello: guitarist Bill Frisell, bass player Kermit Driscoll and the ex-Stark Reality drummer Vinton Johnson. The result of that short visit was the album Okno (The Window).

"Trochu funky" actually means "A little bit funky". But I'd say that the track is funky a lot, thus the English title The Funky Way seems more appropriate. One highlight is certainly Johnson's extensive drumming. Watch out for two long breaks which should please all samplaficionados out there. On the other hand, Viklický's melodies borrow a lot from Moravian ethnic music and that joyous nature fits quite well with the disco beat. And although I don't find the tune arrangement and structure as exciting as it could have possibly been, this kind of fusion makes it still quite distinguishable from similar international disco-jazz productions of that era. The rest of album continues in a similar funky fusion vein, except for one ballad.

The record doesn't fall behind if you compare it with its more famous western competition, although at some points it sounds slightly "underproduced" to me. You should check out this Bill Frisell discography page, it tells Viklický's background story why the recording sessions had to be finished in less than two days; it may sound quite absurd to you, but those things that he's talking about were typical for the era of normalized socialism... Anyway, some more clever arrangements or perhaps a horn section here and there wouldn't have hurt. Because in fact, Trochu funky has been re-recorded by Kamil Hála with the Czechoslovak Radio Jazz Orchestra (JOČR) in 1982, entitled Quasi opus pro big band č. 17, released by Panton on the obscure compilation series Matiné populární hudby (a.k.a. Týden nové tvorby). The big band arrangement definitely works, although in that tune the JOČR rhythm section sounds really tired in direct comparison to the original raw drive of the Johnson/Driscoll funk machine.

Okno is without doubt one of the funkiest original albums that ever came out on a Czechoslovak record label. The recordings have been reissued on CD in 1997, but as you might have guessed: deleted from the catalogues, not available for order, out of print. Sometimes it's still available on eBay though. I've also seen second hand vinyl quite cheap from Slovakia.

The girl on the broomstick

Petra Černocká & the Karel Vlach Orchestra - Saxana [sample]
from 7 inch SP "Dívka na koštěti", 1972, Supraphon 0431326, also on the compilation album "12 pro Mladý svět", 1972, Supraphon 1131294
conducted by Karel Vlach, produced by Jiří Baur


original SP sleeve & the compilation LP sleeve

Dívka na koštěti (The Girl On The Broomstick) is one of my favorite Czech fairy-tale movies from the 1970s. Actually, it's sort of a crossover genre because the director Václav Vorlíček was using elements from fairy-tales, fantasy and contemporary slapstick comedy, creating a fresh mix which still looks charming some 35 years later. I loved it then and I still love it now - in particular the lady who played the title role...

Petra Černocká (1949) is not an actor who sings but a singer who also used to act occasionally. She studied opera singing and piano on the Prague Conservatory. In 1967 she started to sing (and act) in the legendary Semafor Theatre. Her first record was her own song Ovečky (Little Sheep), recorded with a beat group of fellow conservatory students called Pastýři (The Shepherds). They recorded a couple of other 45s with folk-rock and pop tunes. In the early 1970s she joined the rock group Cardinals, but with the arrival of the "bubblegum-softie" Zdeněk Merta (from F.R. Čech's Shut Up Orchestra) the band soon transformed to Kardinálové and started to play and record dull pop and C&W music - thus slipping out of my funky focus anyway. As for acting, besides of small roles in various TV and movie productions, the young witch pupil character Saxana a.k.a. "the girl on the broomstick" was her first major role. She's nowhere to be seen singing in the movie though. According to a statement on her web site, originally she wasn't even considered to sing the title song either.

That tune from the movie, Saxana, remains Černocká's biggest hit and her signature song. It was composed by Angelo Michajlov with lyrics from Pavel Kopta. Michajlov was a Bulgarian who lived and studied music in Prague. Like Černocká, he also used to perform in the Semafor Theatre for some time. He wrote songs for Czech major pop artists like Marta Kubišová, Helena Vondráčková, Eva Pilarová or Václav Neckář. In the late sixties he began to work as a movie and TV score composer. Among his better known works were the scores for the popular 1980s children movie pictures Chobotnice z 2. patra (Octopuses From The 2nd Floor) or Lucie.

I have already briefly mentioned the Karel Vlach Orchestra as one of the best Czechoslovak big bands of the last century. That certainly applies if you dig swing, and the band history goes as far back as to the 1930s! Generally however, the orchestra's ouput wasn't necessarily funky in our sense; most of their recordings from the sixties on were anything else than progressive. Yet the boys in the band are still providing quite groovy backing on this particular track, although the overall production puts it rather closer to the "cheesy listening" genre. The 1970s orchestra line-up is unknown to me for most parts, but it's not unlikely that Michajlov himself was sitting at the piano.

The 7 inch record is the movie "soundtrack", although the b-side track, Georgie, has nothing to do with it (and it's even much closer to cheese anyway). The song Saxana is available on various Czech CD compilations as it was one of the most popular songs of the 70s in Czechoslovakia. The movie itself is available on DVD with English subtitles and if you already like Czech children movies, you're going to love this one too. (A sequel directed by Vorlíček again is currently being produced but I'm not holding my breath; the computer animated characters as they can be seen on this web site don't promise anything good.) The aforementioned Various Artists vinyl compilation 12 pro Mladý svět (12 for the Young World magazine) will be tougher to find though; I've seen it only once so far - and that was the copy I have now. While the record doesn't contain much "progressive" material either, there's a couple of other, well, obscurities of historical character like few songs played and sung by the official and highly unpopular young communist "rock" group Plameny (The Flames) or a rare (and rather silly) post-Framus-Five bubble-gum outing by Michal Prokop. And drum break junkies might perhaps appreciate a less known pop tune by Olympic...

P.S. Dívka na koštěti läuft lief in der deutschen Fassung als Das Mädchen auf dem Besenstiel am 31.12.2006 um 6:00 Uhr im RBB.

The letter in a bottle

Barnodaj (a.k.a. Progres 2) - Dopis v láhvi [sample]
from album "Mauglí", 1978, Supraphon 1131919
arranged by Pavel Váně & Zdeněk Kluka, produced by Hynek Žalčík, Jan Spálený & Květoslav Rohleder


original LP sleeve (front/back)

Somehow it took those guys from Brno about ten years until they finally determined a band name. They started in 1968 as the Progress Organization which was certainly meant with a portion of irony, aiming at the communist "newspeak". In the dark times of 1971, when everything English was being banned by the authorities, they changed the name to Barnodaj, a fictional pseudo-slavic word. Their legendary first album from the same year still carried the original name though. The next six years they spent as Skupina Jana Sochora (Jan Sochor Group), backing pop artists like Martha & Tena Elefteriadu or Bob Frídl. In 1977 they started to work with lyricist Petr Kopta and producer Hynek Žalčík on a "composed rock programme" based on the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. But even before the resulting album Mauglí (Mowgli) - credited to "Barnodaj" again - was released in 1978, the group reincarnated once more, this time as Progres 2...

Mauglí is a prog-rock album which at some places sounds like it would have been recorded during the late sixties psychedelia. Unlike its predecessor or the subsequent sci-fi rock opera Dialog s vesmírem (Dialog With The Universe), it's not a masterpiece though, and even if you dig prog-rock I don't think it will really blow you out of your funky socks. But I'd still point out both sitar tracks: the instrumental lead-in Džungle (The Jungle) with lots of tom-tom breaks and the dramatic final song Osud (Destiny).

In the middle of it all there's Dopis v láhvi (A Letter In A Bottle), a wicked rock song with that certain touch of funk, written and sung by Pavel Váně. It starts with Pavel Pelc's touch-wah bass, in comes Váně's dirty guitar and Jan Sochor's abstract organ and Moog lines, all held together by Zdeněk Kluka's lively drums. As special guests on this song we also hear an uncredited jazzy horn section as well as ex-Flamengo Jan Kubík with his strong-as-usual tenor sax solo. Yep, that's what the Funky Czech-In is all about: discover the funk even in places where you wouldn't expect it.

Progres 2 recorded a couple of boring albums in the eighties and faded away. Only Kluka kept the trademark alive, sort of: at the end of the 80s he re-appeared with a couple of young musicians as Progres-Pokrok ("pokrok" actually means "progress" in Czech) with the sarcastic show Otrava krve (Blood Poisoning), releasing an excellent and almost "punky" album in 1990. Nowadays the nucleus of the original group (Kluka/Váně/Pelc) still occasionally performs as Progres 2 or Progress Organization, besides of working on their own projects.

You might find Mauglí on vinyl either on eBay or maybe elsewhere if you google for "barnodaj". A CD reissue has just been released in November 2006, so get it while you can. The first album should be also available on CD with a couple of rare bonus tracks. And if you're a "hardcore" collector and you'd like to own the original ultra-mega-rare very first Progress Organization EP from 1970, released on the short-lived Discant label, I know a guy who will sell it to you for as low as € 100.00 (I had to pass this one although I certainly liked it...)

Interlude no. 1

As some of you might have already noticed, this music blog is less about being a diary giving away your daily dose of megabytes. Rather I consider it an archive of facts about Czech and Slovak music as defined in the blog header. It's based on my knowledge and what I have gathered from the web (which is mostly in Czech language only), from some books and from the record liner notes. Therefore I don't think it's a good idea to remove any traces of audio from earlier posts after a certain time - which has been after about five weeks so far. Instead, I have now uploaded lo-fi samples of each song that has been published, so in the future you will be still able to hear what I've been writing about. "Lo-fi" means 60 seconds of 64 kbps in mono. Front page audio will be still available in "full size" at 192 kbps (or 96 kbps if mono) as usual.

One more thing...



Someone asked for any rare Yvonne Přenosilová tracks. And indeed I've got one: He's So Heavenly [sample] that appeared on the 1990 album Sklípek, available on vinyl and MC only. In fact, the Sklípek compilation was Přenosilová's first long play album ever! The song was recorded around 1965 or 1966 with the Pavel Sedláček Group. It's a nice up-tempo R&B number, taken from the Brenda Lee repertoire.

An LP is available for sale very cheap. Hurry up!

Rings on the water

Helena Vondráčková & Jazz Q - Kruhy na vodě [sample]
from album "Paprsky", 1978, Supraphon 1132350
arranged by Martin Kratochvíl, produced by Jan Spálený, Mojmír Balling & Květoslav Rohleder


original LP sleeve (front/back)

Helena Vondráčková is without doubt the number one Czech female pop star. With more than 40 years in the show biz she's one of the few still active and still successful veterans from the early days of contemporary Czechoslovak pop music. The complete Vondráčková story is well documented on this English fan site, so I won't go much into details here.

Although she had plenty of top hits in the 1970s with a lot of airplay and TV appearances, her regular albums were neither really great nor very popular, partly because they were too mainstream oriented while lacking obvious hit material. This may have been the reason why she teamed up in early 1978 with jazz-rocker Martin Kratochvíl to record Paprsky (Beams), an album without hits, too, but with lots of exciting and funky music. It wasn't her first collaboration with jazz musicians though, ex-SHQ Luděk Švábenský and his Strýci (a.k.a. Šest strýců) used to be her live backing group in the mid seventies, recording a couple of pop 45s and a quite nice easy listening album in 1974.

Paprsky was recorded by Kratochvíl's regular group Jazz Q with František Francl, Vladimír Padrůněk (1952-1991) and Jaromír Helešic, including a few guests: Michal Gera, Jiří Tomek, Vladimír Merta, Petr Kalandra and Oskar Petr, who also wrote most of the lyrics. Kratochvíl was responsible for all keyboards, arrangements and most compositions. A few songs were penned by Vondráčková's younger brother Jiří Vondráček. Interesting fact in this context is the direct connection to the folk-rock group Marsyas, which I have featured on Funky Czech-In in October: Marsyas used to play live gigs with Jazz Q; Kalandra and Petr appeared on this album; Petr left Marsyas and became Jazz Q's lead singer (until his emigration in 1979) while Helena's brother Jiří Vondráček on the other hand joined Marsyas as Petr's replacement...

Back in the days this LP was considered a very experimental project for a pop singer like Vondráčková. Today it may sound more conventional than originally intended, but compared to her other outings from the late seventies and from the eighties it's still the one Vondráčková album that you might want to own. Paprsky is available as a double CD including the 1980 pure disco album Můzy (Muses a.k.a. Music) which is quite a logical choice. Get it e.g. on cdmusic.cz or on supermusic.cz, you can listen to Ogg Vorbis samples on this official discography page. For vinyl try eBay. Oh, by the way, a couple of her vinyl records from the sixties are available in my web shop, too (items no. 482, 964, 1194, 1197 and 1213).

The painted orchestra

Plameňáci/Flamingo - Malovaná kapela [sample]
from album "Plameňáci/Flamingo & Marie Rottrová 75", 1976, Supraphon 1131695
arranged by Richard Kovalčík, produced by Květoslav Rohleder & Jan Hrábek


original LP sleeve (front/back)

Flamingo a.k.a. Plameňáci are back on the blog, my friend, albeit this time without their lead singer Marie Rottrová. Today we'll have a first look on Rottrová/Flamingo's third regular album. It is your very proof of the old saying that you shouldn't judge a record by its cover. Because although the front photo sells you a softie female singer in a long blue dress fronting a variety show orchestra in tuxedos playing on a tinfoil-decorated stage in some kind of a small town multi-purpose hall where you can even recognize a couple of forgotten wooden chairs behind the stage in the top left corner, for most parts your turntable will speak the language of funk, soul, and jazz-rock.

Although called "75" and released in 1976, some of the album tracks have been already recorded in 1974, shortly before Flamingo's original leader Richard Kovalčík passed away. But his trumpet only appears somewhere on Jiří Urbánek's instrumental opener Poslední okamžik (The Last Moment) which is seven minutes of boiling jazz funk featuring a long bass guitar solo; certainly not a typical way to kick off what's actually supposed to be a pop album. Even the writer of an online review of the CD reissue seems to be rather puzzled - to put it mildly - about the original album concept and sound; well, I definitely don't share his opinion... Anyway, it's almost more a "Flamingo" than a "Rottrová" album because out of eight and a half songs (Quasimodo's Dream is split into two parts on both sides) there are three original instrumental tunes while the guys also get plenty of room on the vocal tracks to show their high class musicianship.

Malovaná kapela (The Painted Orchestra) is the instrumental funk bomb of the album. This little tune could make any blaxploitation soundtrack a sought-after collector's item, let alone a Czechoslovak pop album from the mid 1970s. I'd even go as far as to state that this gem is the ultimate original Czech funk. The latinesque groove somehow reminds me of Melvin Van Peebles' (and Earth Wind & Fire's) Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Written and arranged by Kovalčík, it must have been recorded after his death because according to the liner notes he doesn't even play on it. The bad news is: this is not an edit, the original track indeed runs under two minutes. Before it fades out you'll still get a short passionate saxophone solo by the band beau Rudolf Březina.

As I said, 75 has been reissued on a double CD as a 2-in-1 with the solid 1981 pop-soul album Muž č. 1 (The Man No. 1) as well as plenty of singles-only bonus tracks, however in the meantime it seems to be out of stock although I've seen a copy online while researching for this post a few weeks ago. The original vinyl is worth to pick anyway, you should try to search for Czech sources though. Overthere it's not as rare (yet) as some online sellers might suggest, earlier this year in Prague I've seen mint copies for as low as CZK 50 (EUR 2).