Interlude: Spanish Czech-in

Sometimes I wish a day had at least thirty-two hours. So much music, so little time, as they say. Thus it happened that it’s been almost two weeks since Funky Czech-in was “on tour” in Madrid, Spain, and so this post is not exactly hot news anymore.

Anyway: thanks to Iñigo of Vampisoul we were guests on Charlie Faber’s insane radio show Sateli 3 live on Radio 3. The house was smokin’ and the receivers were explodin’ all over Iberia while we were airing hottest Czechoslovak bigbít from the sixties and the seventies! Only the best tracks were played, including some stuff that you already know from here. I hope to get the recording of the show soon to post it here as an MP3 stream. In the meantime tune into Sateli 3 live every evening from monday to friday, 9 to 10 pm CET. And while you’re already surfing, you may want to check out the nicely retro-designed funky site of Charlie’s friends at www.canora.es.


Lou Kash and Charlie Faber in a RNE studio (photo: © Iñigo Munster)

Until the full recording of the show arrives, here’s the first song that I’ve played:
Karel Vlach Orchestra – Tančíme twist [sample]
from 7 inch split single Supraphon 013434, around 1963


a generic seven inch Supraphon sleeve from the 1960s

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Marriage on Bear’s Meadow

Fermáta – Svadba na Medvedej lúke [sample]
from album “Pieseň z hôľ (Song From Ridges)”, 1976, Opus 91160521
produced by Štefan Danko & Ján Lauko


original LP sleeve (front/back)

Since June I’ve spent about one or two weeks each month in Prague for family duties, over six weeks in total. Tomorrow we’re going for yet another week to my home town. This time one of the reasons for our visit is quite pleasant, however. Ondra, my oldest friend for more than thirty years since our school days, is going to marry Markéta on Saturday. But other than that – there’s absolutely no connection between the upcoming event and the main subject of this article except for the first word of the title of this tune: Svadba na Medvedej lúke (Marriage On Bear’s Meadow). Well then – Happy Marriage! (Oh, and while we’re at it: Happy Birthday to my brother Daniel today!)

The Slovak guitar virtuoso František Griglák, born in 1953, was already a well respected and experienced musician before he even turned twenty. With Pavol Hammel he recorded the early albums Prúdy (The Jets) and Som šťastný keď ste šťastní (I Am Happy When You Are Happy) in 1970–1971. Afterwards he shifted to the other main Slovak progressive group of the seventies, Marián Varga’s Collegium Musicum, with whom he worked on the classic(al) double LP Konvergencie (Convergency). In 1973 Griglák established Fermáta as likely the first and for a few years the only professional and more or less straight instrumental jazz-rock combo in Slovakia. The other founding members were the keyboarder and professional stage designer Tomáš Berka (1947), bassist Anton Jaro (1954) as well as originally Pavol Kozma on drums, who was soon replaced by Peter Szapu and in 1976 by another ex-Prúdy member Cyril Zeleňák (1951).

Probably thanks to Berka’s daily job, in the beginning the group used to record lots of scenic themes for various Slovak theater productions, thus training their sense for transforming colors and atmosphere into music. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1975. While it was clearly inspired by jazz-rock heroes like Mahavishnu McLaughlin or Al DiMeola, it suffered from rather poor recording production. One year later, the second album Pieseň z hôľ (Song From Ridges) turned out much better. Not only from the technical but also from the conceptual point of view. Quoting from the English liner notes by Igor Wasserberger: “In Czechoslovak jazz-rock it is this record that presents the most complete essay to form a synthesis with elements of domestic folk music. (…) Fermáta avoid frequent ways of rock and jazz arrangement of folk songs and try to involve elements of [Slovak] folk music into their own musical tongue.”

While the aforementioned statement certainly applies, Svadba na Medvedej lúke (Marriage On Bear’s Meadow) remains an unusual tune in Fermáta’s repertoire. Firstly, written by Berka, Jaro and Zeleňák, it’s the only collective instrumental composition from the group’s 1970s output; all other tunes have been penned either by Griglák or by Berka. Secondly, the band leader Griglák doesn’t seem to participate on this track at all. And frankly, I don’t even miss him that much. [Hey, no personal offense… :) But despite being a guitarist myself, actually I quite dislike the guitar-driven pyrotechnical jazz-rock sub-genre in general; except for Zappa, that is.] The song begins with a drum/synthesizer simulation of a thunderstorm or something, likely happening somewhere in the woods of the Tatra mountains, which then takes us to the said meadow (which actually really exists) while it evolves into a laid back but joyous funky wedding groove carried by a lively bass and colored by wide Fender Rhodes chords floating out of the folk-influenced themes. In fact, the track reminds me of Billy Cobham’s early work from his Spectrum/Crosswind period. In any case, to me Fermáta never sounded as warm as on this track again, although their later albums also include a couple of jazz-funk inspired sequences here and there.

In 1977 Karol Oláh replaced Zeleňák on drums and Ladislav Lučenič became the new bass player. In 1979 yet another ex-Prúdy/Collegium Musicum (and even ex-Blue Effect) member joined in, the Slovak bass master Fedor Frešo. Besides of releasing their conceptual albums the group also used to work as a studio backing band for artists like Miroslav Žbirka (two singles in 1976), Pavol Hammel (Stretnutie s tichom and the first Czechoslovak rock-musical Cyrano z predmestia) or for Dežo Ursiny (Pevnina detstva). The original Fermáta disbanded in 1985 after Oláh’s tragical death. Griglák revived the group with new musicians in the 1990s and continues to tour actively to the present day.

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Interlude: Even Joe has already wrapped it up

Back home in Basel with access to my record collection, I can finally post my little homage to Joe Zawinul who passed away last week. Zawinul’s life is well documented all over the world wide web, so I’ll refrain from repeating what others already might have written much better. Just to create a clearer connection to this blog I’d point out a less known fact that Zawinul, born in Austria in 1932, also had Czech roots: his grand father hailed from Moravia. The origin is also obvious if you look at the literal meaning of the surname Zawinul. “Zavinout” means in Czech “to wrap up” or “to swathe” which is pretty well illustrated by the Czech word for the @ symbol: “zavináč” (zavináč is actually a rollmops).

So, after this small lesson in etymology let’s move on to music. I don’t think it’s necessary to upload yet another rip of Birdland, Country Preacher or Mercy Mercy Mercy, although from the latter there exist at least two nice renditions on records by Czech artists: a live instrumental from Šest strýců and and the brilliant vocal version Nechci (I Don’t Want) from Marie Rottrová’s first solo album, both from 1972. Nevertheless, the following instrumental tune has nothing to do with Joe Zawinul whatsoever except for its pun title, making it sort of a perfect requiem…

Combo FH - Asi to zabalíme, i Josef už to zavinul [sample]
from album “Věci/Thing”, 1980, Panton 81130184
produced by Daniel Fikejz and Antonín Matzner


original LP sleeve by Miloš Jirsa

“Asi to zabalíme, i Josef už to zavinul” translates literally as “perhaps we shall pack it up, even Joe has already wrapped it up”. But since the connection to Zawinul would get completely lost in the translation, on the album the official English title for this tune was Weather Report For Tonight, Let’s Call It A Day. Nice try, but not nearly as funny as the Czech one. The other tracks from Věci have pretty funny pun titles as well (Second Best Mousetrap or Dried Strawberry’s Dream), reminding of songs by Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa. That’s not a big surprise, of course, since the composer and band leader Daniel Fikejz has been known as quite a fan of Zappa.

For more info on Combo FH you might want to revisit my article from September 2006.

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Pendulum

Discobolos – Kyvadlo [sample]
from album “Discobolos”, 1978, Supraphon 1132348
conducted by Jiří Svoboda, produced by Michael Prostějovský


original album sleeve (front/back)

As I stated before, Discobolos was a studio project of the brothers Karel (1938-2007) and Jiří Svoboda (1945-2004). While Karel became (in)famous as a hitmaker and later as a composer of musicals, Jiří was mainly active writing film and TV scores. The highlights of his career were two movie scores written for the director and future Academy Award winner Jan Svěrák in 1991 (Obecná škola) and 1993 (Akumulátor 1).

Established at the zenith of the disco era, Discobolos was one of the few projects when the Czechoslovak pop music industry was able to keep pace with a global vogue. (Not that it comes as a big surprise: unlike rock, for sure the communist censors considered disco ideologically “safe” due to the lack of any serious verbal message.) Besides of studio work for artists like Jiří Schelinger or Helena Vondráčková (the 1980 album Múzy/Music), Discobolos released two “solo” albums in 1978 and 1979: Discobolos and Disco/Sound. The latter consisted mostly of “recycled” and disco-fied versions of older pop hits writen by Karel Svoboda. The first album, however, contained original material including one of the most popular Czech disco hits Dlouhá bílá žhnoucí kometa (A Long White Glowing Comet) sung by the exceptional vocal talent Jana Kratochvílová (1953).

Kratochvílová’s unmistakeable voice also adds the spice to the theme melody on Jiří Svoboda’s nearly-instrumental Kyvadlo (Pendulum). Czech pop music has never been closer to American disco-funk than with this tune, despite the occasional timing problems which the drummer seemed to have. Nonetheless, the studio group was built around a competent bunch of rock and jazz musicians, then also known as Bohemia: Vladimír Kulhánek on bass, Michal Pavlíček on guitars, percussionist Jiří Tomek, saxophonist Jan Kubík and Pavel Trnavský who was obviously the said drummer. On few tracks even Lešek Semelka appeared as the lead vocalist. Lots of keyboarders were involved anyway: Pavel Větrovec, Karel Štolba, Jan Hála and of course the Svoboda brothers. Additional vocals à la Silver Convention were provided by the female trio Viktorínová/Nopová/Jakoubková alias Bezinky.

Both Discobolos vinyl album should be quite easy to find in Prague or in Czech online stores, since they were anything else but rare. I’ve even seen some on flea markets in Switzerland recently. In fact, that reminds me that I still have a copy for sale – for one Euro only! (Yes, there’s a caveat: one track is badly scratched, that’s why.)

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Solstice

Jazz Q - Slunovrat [sample]
from album "Elegie", 1976, Supraphon 1151983
produced by Hynek Žalčík & Jan Spálený


original LP sleeve designed by Karel Haloun, export album, export reissue

While I've been a bit behind my weekly schedule with my previous blog post - which has been delayed by a couple of days - today I'm almost on time with an actual astronomical event. And speaking of time, it's truly about time to dedicate an entry to one of the most important Czechoslovak acts of the seventies, Martin Kratochvíl's Jazz Q. Despite the group's name, their importance didn't manifest only on the jazz side of things, of course. Like many other 1970s Czechoslovak combos oriented to jazz, at times they were able to supply a heavy dose of rock to the starving audience as well. And actually it's not even the first time you're hearing Jazz Q on this blog, they were already backing Helena Vondráčková last December.

Jazz Q was founded in 1964 by keyboarder Kratochvíl (1946) with flutist and saxophonist Jiří Stivín. In the beginning they inclined to free jazz. The group was even quite successful internationally, both Kratochvíl and Stivín won a couple of festival prizes in the late 1960s. But while Stivín wanted to continue with his free work, Kratochvíl decided to switch over to the progressive rock camp. After all, he spent the years 1967-1968 in England where he visited a lot of pop festivals, experiencing acts like the Doors or Jimi Hendrix.

Still with Stivín, Jazz Q recorded their first Supraphon LP in 1970, Coniunctio. That was a collaboration with Radim Hladík's reduced Blue Effect who had just kicked their singer Vladimír Mišík out of the group. The album came out pretty weird. Jazz Q already tried to move closer to rock while Blue Effect were sort of searching for the way out of it. All at the same time. And though one might assume that both groups would meet somewhere in the middle, they didn't. Stivín then left for a stellar solo career and Kratochvíl rebuilt his group from the ground up. His 1973 effort Pozorovatelna (The Watch-Tower) has been recorded for Panton with ex-Framus 5 Luboš Andršt on guitar and the young talented bass guitarist Vladimír Padrůněk (later with Mišík's ETC, then again with Jazz Q). Only few months later Kratochvíl began to work on a new Supraphon album with ex-Flamengo blues specialist František Francl (1946) on guitar and his English wife and vocalist Joan Duggan: Symbiosis became one of the darkest reflections of the Czechoslovak normalization era and it's definitely worth another "czech-in" in the future.

Slunovrat (Solstice) is the opener of Elegie (Elegy), Jazz Q's fourth album. Clearly inspired by big names in funk-jazz and fusion, Kratochvíl excels on Fender Rhodes and Moog, Francl plays a sparse but effective rock guitar, while bassist Přemysl Faukner (1952) with drummer Libor Laun (1951) are cookin' it tight and funky. The other seven album tracks also feature several special guests like ETC's violinist Jan Hrubý, Impuls's Michal Gera on trumpet or the ubiquitous Jiří Tomek on conga.

In 1977 Kratochvíl spent a year at the Berklee College of Music. Back from the States he continued to perform and record under the Jazz Q flag until 1984. Besides of making instrumental albums he also used to work with various singers: Jana Kratochvílová, Jana Koubková, the aforementioned Helena Vondráčková, Martha Elefteriadu or with ex-Marsyas Oskar Petr.

Jazz Q reunited another 20 years later, in 2004, and they are still performing these days. The recent line-up features only one "new" member, the Impuls guitarist Zdeněk Fišer. (Francl had to give up playing guitar in the 1980s due to a hand injury. He's still active as a recording producer though.) Faukner is back on the fretless bass, Jaromír Helešic already played drums on Zvěsti (Tidings) and Paprsky (Beams) in 1977-1978. And on vocals there's Oskar Petr again who returned from his U.S. exile to the Czech Republic in the 1990s.

Regular Jazz Q albums are available as second hand vinyl only, so czech out your online sources. Some tracks from Elegie also appeared on several English and German funk-jazz/fusion compilations.

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A rose in the window

Miroslav Koželuh & TOČR/JOČR - Růže v okně [sample]
b-side of the 7 inch split single "René Glaneau - Le petit Gonzales", 1962~, Supraphon 013221
conducted by Karel Krautgartner


a TOČR/JOČR recording session in the early 1960s

After visiting the vernissage of the Karel Krautgartner exhibition* at the Popmuseum* in Prague last week, I think it's appropriate to add a corresponding "soundtrack". But I'm still in Prague right now, so the choice is somewhat limited to what I have already recorded to MP3 and stored in my laptop, since my record collection happens to be in Switzerland. Hence a track which actually features another soloist of Krautgartner's orchestra, not the leader himself.

Karel Krautgartner (1922-1982) began his music career in the 1940s as a clarinetist in various groups and orchestras in Brno, among others in an early line-up of the Gustav Brom Orchestra. In 1945 Krautgartner became member of the renowned Karel Vlach Orchestra, so he moved from Brno to Prague. Under Vlach's leadership he became a versatile soloist on clarinet and sax, composer and arranger. In 1956 he formed his own quintet. This group eventually grew up to a nonet, building the nucleus of the future radio big band and performing with the Czech first lady of jazz Vlasta Průchová as well as with a talented young singer named Karel Gott, who in fact has been discovered by Krautgartner in the first place.

Krautgartner founded the Dance Orchestra of The Czechoslovak Radio (TOČR) in 1960. The circumstances have already been briefly described in my JOČR post from last November. After the conceptual split of the orchestra to TOČR and JOČR in 1963 Krautgartner remained its chief conductor and artistic leader. In 1967 the big band has been officially renamed (and reunited) as the Karel Krautgartner Orchestra. Then came the 21st of August 1968. Krautgartner with his family emigrated to Austria on the very same day and he never came back. In Vienna he worked as the conductor of the ORF Big Band. In the early 1970s he moved to Cologne, Germany, where he began to study musicology and taught at the Cologne conservatory until his early death in 1982.

Růže v okně (A Rose In The Window) originally was a Czech waltz, composed by Alfons Jindra for the Karel Vlach Orchestra with the singer Jiřina Salačová in the 1940s. It's even possible that Krautgartner already was a member of the Vlach ensemble when the song was first released on an Ultraphon 78 rpm record then. TOČR's 1960s instrumental revamp on the other hand connects the melancholic melody with a fashionable and danceable cha-cha-cha rhythm. The soloist was the trombone maestro Miroslav Koželuh. Other band members at the time of the recording (probably 1962 or 1963) might have been Ladislav Pikart, František Kryka, Bedřich Kuník, Milan Ulrich, Pavel Vitoch, Jiří Jelínek, Richard Kubernát, Václav Hybš, Arthur Hollitzer, Vladimír Tomek, Kamil Hála, Luděk Hulan and Ivan Dominák.

This track appeared as the flip side of the smash hit Le petit Gonzales (Speedy Gonzales), sung by Frenchman René Glaneau with the Sláva Kunst Orchestra. Coincidentally, I have another copy of this 7 inch for sale: check out my web shop and search for item no. 276.

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* Technical note:
If you're using a Mac you'd better view the Popmuseum site in Firefox. It doesn't seem to work well with Safari.

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Bafff

František Ringo Čech Group - Bafff (Jingo) [sample]
from album "Báječní muži", 1975, Supraphon 1131776


original LP sleeve (front/back)

František "Ringo" Čech (1943) is not only a "bigbít" veteran and a living legend, he is also one of the most controversial figures in Czech rock history. On one hand his music taste has never been really refined, on the other he supposedly didn't only make friends among his colleagues during his career, neither with his business practices nor with his public statements. Čech originates from a family of musicians, his father was a well known songwriter in Prague. His career began as a teenage drummer in dixieland and brass orchestras. In that context it's worth to mention that he's probably the first (future) Czechoslovak rock musician ever to appear on a 12 inch long player: as a member of the Study Group Of Traditional Jazz he hit the skins on a track from the Czechoslovak Jazz 1963 compilation, sharing the vinyl grooves with top jazz names like Karel Krautgartner, Gustav Brom, Luděk Hulan or Karel Velebný. In 1963 Čech began to study at the Prague Conservatory, but at the same time he decided to become a rock'n'roll drummer. He got a job at the Olympik club, Prague's beat address number one. With the club house band, the original Olympic, he recorded about two dozens of 7" sides until 1965, including Dej mi víc své lásky (Give Me More Of Your Love), their first self-penned beat hit in Czech language. He quitted for a prestigious Las Vegas engagement with Jiří Srnec's Black Theatre while J.A. Pacák became Olympic's new drummer. Back from the States, Čech tried his luck with rock'n'roll again, founding the all-star Rogers Band with several former rock'n'roll stars, but by 1967 pure rock'n'roll was already out of fashion.

The history of the F.R. Čech Group begins in 1968 in the renown Semafor Theatre in Prague. They used to work there as the Shut Up Orchestra, being one of the theater's house bands and usually backing comedy shows by Šimek & Grossmann. Initially their repertoire mostly consisted of country & western covers with Jiří Grossmann's and later with Čech's lyrics - sometimes humorous, sometimes rather silly. Shut Up performed and recorded with Grossmann, Jiří Helekal, Pavel Bobek, Miluše Voborníková, Karel Černoch or the ex-Rebels (what a pun...!) Jiří Korn. Among the group instrumentalists were Čech's brother Svatopluk on bass, former Komety guitarists Kaleš and Reiner, keyboarder Zdeněk Merta or the ex-Juventus Petr Rezek. Čech was still sitting behind the drums but he also slowly evolved to the group's master mind. After Grossmann's death in 1971 Shut Up began to work with singer Viktor Sodoma who was still trying to launch a pop career since the 1968 breakup of the Matadors. At the very least, at that time Čech proved a good sense for choosing obscure bubble-gum music cover versions which then became popular hits in Czechoslovakia. The only part that might have been close to subversion and therefore objected by the authorities was the English band name, thus Shut Up had to be relabeled as F.R. Čech Group.

In 1973 Čech retired from playing the drum kit and became what we would call an M.C. these days - a master of ceremony - while he was still occasionally standing behind assorted percussion instruments on stage. Although he never really left the pop genre for the years to come, as an opportunist that he was he must have realized that the continuing communist oppression on rock music in the early 1970s could actually help him on his way to even bigger fame while gaining credibility by the non-commercially oriented young audience. So in times when almost everyone else in Czechoslovakia would be giving up distorted guitars in favor of safe jobs on the legal side of pop music, Čech's group began to fire up their boosters in an unheard manner to date, bringing examples of contemporary hard rock à la Deep Purple or Black Sabbath to the hungry freaks. And with that change in style a definite change behind the lead vocalist's microphone became inevitable as well, but that's already another story.

Bafff is a "cover" of Babatunde Olatunji's ultimate afro groove Jingo, a.k.a. Jin-Go-Lo-Ba. But F.R. Čech was covering Santana's latinized version from 1969 and he even got it all wrong because he obviously believed he was playing a track called Soul Sacrifice, at least that's what the album cover says. (It's likely that Čech & Co. only had a taped copy of a Santana LP and thus they weren't able to figure out the corresponding track titles...) The song has been recorded by the Czech TV in 1973 or 1974, in the transition period before Sodoma's definitive departure and while the new vocalist Jiří Schelinger arrived. The exact line-up or the recording date seems unknown though. František Ringo Čech was playing percussion, of course, and he's not even doing all that bad. Most likely there's the future Katapult frontman Oldřich Říha playing lead guitar and the Shut Up veteran Miloš Nop (1949-2006) was on organ. Jindřich Vobořil might have played bass and either Anatolij Kohout, Petr Eichler or Jiří Jirásek (ex-George & Beatovens) was drumming. Whether Sodoma or Schelinger were singing any backing vocals is unsure as well.

For sure is that Bafff isn't the ultimate Jingo rendition, that honor belongs without doubt to Candido's disco monster from 1979. But it's still a remarkable afro-rock/latin-rock effort for a pop band that's been stuck behind the Iron Curtain through the best era of the rock history. And as I have stated a couple of weeks ago, it's one of the very few examples of this genre ever recorded in Czechoslovakia in the seventies. Unfortunately, as a quasi-instrumental cover tune it seems to be omitted from any Schelinger/Sodoma/Čech CD compilations, so grab it while it's hot.

I've been briefly writing about the album Báječní muži (Wonderful Men) and some of its background story in my Schelinger post last year. While it was the Čech Group's first true 12 inch LP, in the early 70s they already recorded two "bubble-gum" mini-albums for Panton under the Shut Up moniker. (Such mini-LPs or rather "maxi-EPs" were an obscure and luckily short-lived 7 inch/33 rpm hybrid format with 6 to 8 tracks - probably invented in order to save vinyl resources or something - and partly unplayable on auto-return turntables due to the much narrower inner groove diameter.) Shut Up/F.R. Čech Group has also been backing Sodoma on the side two of his only solo LP Haló děťátka (Hello Little Children) in 1972. Although with five years of age I definitely belonged to the target audience for that album, I can clearly remember that there was something about Sodoma that I disliked then...

Stay tuned to this channel, more about Schelinger/Čech & Co. will surely show up here in the future.

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Day by day (in memoriam, the 3rd)

Stano Táska & Strawberry Jam – Day By Day
from a demo recording 1997

This is simply unbelievable! The series of friends of mine passing away just doesn’t want to stop! Yesterday I’ve received an e-mail message that Stano Táska has tragically died last Saturday while kayaking in a creek near Adelboden, Switzerland. He was only 37 years old.

Stanislav “Stano” Táska was a goodhearted Slovak guy who came to Switzerland in the early 1990s. We met in March 1997 in Berne when I was looking for a new flatmate. Quickly we became good friends and so we were sharing the flat for more than a year. Stano used to live with Bobina, his Slovak girlfriend at that time, in one large room, while me and my cat were occupying the other two tiny rooms. He was originally an agronomist by profession, but also a very talented saxophonist. In Switzerland he began to play as a street musician, later he studied at the Swiss Jazz School Berne and gigged with various jazz, funk and party combos all over the country. In the recent years he concentrated on his other passion though, working as a co-leader and cook of the Bernese restaurant Im Juli. And last but not least, Stano was also a passionate sportsman in all available elements: on earth, in the air and in the water. (Yes, it’s both him in action on those images!)


Stano at his wedding party in 2004 (photo borrowed from www.imjuli.ch)

In my archives I have found several tracks featuring Stano on the tenor sax. My favorite one is the dynamic soul-jazz flavored tune Day By Day. It was recorded by the Strawberry Jam quartet in a rehearsal room in Solothurn on June 15th 1997 with my analogue 8 track mobile studio (yes, the one I once bought from Hannes Lange who passed away in April). Although I was the recording and mixing engineer of the session, I can only recall that the drummer’s name was Pascal Aeby.

Unfortunately, the guitarist and the bass player are unknown to me ten years later. And I’m not even sure if the tune was an original composition or a cover; to me it actually doesn’t sound like that known old standard as interpreted e.g. by Sinatra and many others.
A Swiss party group called Strawberry Jam seems to be active these days in the Solothurn area again. So it’s quite likely that there’s some kind of a connection to the above jazz quartet of the same name from 1997. (I can check it out later, although it’s quite beyond the scope of this blog.)

Update 26.9.2007:
Pascal Aeby, the drummer of the original Strawberry Jam jazz combo, has written in the comments yesterday, that he’s the composer of this tune and that the other two musicians were Sven Rieger on guitar and Cosimo Staffieri on bass. The band broke up after Rieger had to return to Germany. He also stated that the Strawberry Jam party group mentioned above obviously has nothing to do with Stano’s and Pascal’s original group whatsoever.

Also in the late nineties, Stano used to be a member of the acid jazz combo Da Groove Yard from Burgdorf near Berne. They have released an EP entitled Good Talk then. Low quality audio examples as well as old photos with Stano on saxophone are still available on their web site. Since the group would also qualify for my Half Czech-In series, I might return to them in a future post. Their sound was nothing really earth-shaking though and even Stano didn’t blow his solos with as much juice as usual. I remember that he wasn’t very happy about playing with Da Groove Yard in general and eventually he quitted by the end of the decade.

Although we were in sporadic e-mail contact lately, I didn’t see Stano for over five years. Last summer I went to visit him in his restaurant during one of my very rare trips to Berne, but unfortunately he wasn’t there on that afternoon...

Rest in peace, Stano. You will be sorely missed by way too many!

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Appendix

Impuls - Apendix [sample]
from compilation "Jazzrocková dílna 2", 1976, Panton 110598
produced by Karel Srp


original LP sleeve, designed by Joska Skalník

There was a time in the 1970s when the closest you could get to progressive Czechoslovak rock music was to buy a jazz record. If it wasn't already sold out, that is. Instrumental jazz-rock was not just en vogue, it was also the safest way for Czechoslovak rock groups to obtain a licence for performing in public and - at least in some cases - to appear on records: they could impress the responsible committees with musicianship and there were no lyrics to rouse the censors. Luboš Andršt's Energit was one of the best known examples for this strategy. On the other hand, some of established jazzmen decided to jump on the jazz-rock (in the widest sense) bandwagon as well, in order to gain additional audience, particularly among young listeners; a trend that actually happened all over the world. And then there was a young generation of unbiased musicians who already began to mix rock and jazz as a matter of course from the beginning.

The original Impuls initially got together around 1971 as Jazz Nova with trombonist Jindřich Dostál (ex-Framus Five), still with some focus on mainstream jazz. Some time later (the sources differ on the year, so it must have been between 1972 and 1974...) the keyboarder Pavel Kostiuk (1946, not this guy!), guitarist Zdeněk Fišer (1950), bass player Jan Vytrhlík (later with Energit) and drummer Jaromír Helešic (1947) changed both the group name and the sound after hearing the most recent records by Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock or the Mahavishnu Orchestra with compatriot Jan Hammer. The new soloist eventually became Michal Gera (1949) on electric trumpet, but the rhythm section also used to work as live backing group, e.g. for the C&K Vocal sextet. Vytrhlík has been later replaced by Alexander Čihař and finally in 1976 František Uhlíř (1950) joined on double bass.

Impuls's first vinyl appearance was on the legendary Panton compilation Jazzrocková dílna (Jazzrock Workshop) with the Hancock composition Sly and Corea's Crystal Silence, a live recording from the 2nd Prague Jazz Days (PJD) festival in March 1975. The success of the PJD album gave the impuls (pun intended) to the even more legendary Panton seven inch Mini Jazz Klub series, with Impuls playing two original tunes on no. 7.

Gera's composition Apendix (Appendix), one of Impuls's funkiest tunes, comes from the compilation Jazzrocková dílna 2 (Jazzrock Workshop 2). Although that album was still inspired by the PJD, unlike volume 1 it has been produced as a studio recording where Impuls shared the grooves with fellow jazz-rockers Energit and Jazz Q. And although being a compilation, the whole album sounds surprisingly more homogeneous than many other regular records of that genre. Another track worth to point out is Energit's opus magnum Superstimulátor.

Impuls recorded their well known self-titled debut LP in 1977. By then they have refined their original blend of jazz, rock, latin, funk and Slavic melodies even further, making that album one of the jazz-rock masterpieces even in global context. The group disbanded shortly thereafter, but each of the members eventually became a highly respected musician on his own on the European jazz scene. In the 1990s Fišer revived Impuls in almost original line-up and the group is still playing these days.

Jazzrocková dílna 2 is available on the web at various places. I've even seen a copy on Dusty Groove this week. Unfortunately, the LP doesn't seem to get cheaper as time passes by...

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The fountains of cognition

Mahagon - Prameny poznání [sample]
from album "Slunečnice pro Vincenta van Gogha", 1980, Supraphon 11132684
produced by Jan Spálený, Pavel Kühn & Květoslav Rohleder


original LP sleeve, designed by Vladimír Jiránek

Mahagon might already be a known name to more experienced collectors of funk. They were one of the few quite straight Czech funk-jazz fusion groups of the seventies and their self-titled long play album from 1977 rightfully became a sought-after collector's item.

The band was the brainchild of bass player, composer and arranger Petr Klapka (1955) while he studied composition at the Prague Conservatory. In the early 1970s he founded Mahagon initially as a singer/songwriter folk duo (!) with his classmate and future Bohemia keyboarder Jan Hála. But soon they became influenced by popular brass-rock groups like Blood Sweat & Tears or Chicago, thus the line-up logically expanded to a much larger combo. Klapka usually had an excellent taste in choosing his sidemen: one of the first lead singers was "Mr. Soul" himself, Michal Prokop. Unfortunately that period remained undocumented on records. (Once more... It seems to me that Michal Prokop must have had an extraordinarily bad luck through the seventies in that regard, being often in the right place but mostly at the wrong time.) On the Mahagon debut album, recorded in 1977, you can hear for example Klapka's schoolmate Michael Kocáb on keyboards, ETC members Jiří Jelínek on guitar (who died tragically soon thereafter) and violinist Jan Hrubý, as well as a large horn section around jazz saxophonist Jiří Niederle. At that time a significant number of the players were also members of the Prague Big Band (Pražský big band) of keyboarder Milan Svoboda, yet another Klapka's schoolmate from the conservatory.

After adding his wife and ex-C&K Vocal singer Zdena Adamová (1952) to the line-up in 1976, Klapka occasionally began to slip into the pop music genre. He featured Adamová on several Supraphon and Panton seven inch sides between 1976 and 1979. Not all of those singles are a must-have, but I'd still point out the Mahagon debut recording Půlnoční bál/Červené korále. In 1979 Klapka joined the ex-Apollobeat leader, composer and Supraphon producer Jan Spálený for his solo album Signál času (The Signal Of Time), a funky jazz-rock adaptation of poems by Vítězslav Nezval. Although the band name "Mahagon" was used, the studio group had transformed almost completely.

The second and last regular Mahagon album Slunečnice pro Vincenta van Gogha (Sunflowers For Vincent Van Gogh) has been recorded in 1979, too. But yet another transformation happened: what we hear on this record is actually the forthcoming 1980s edition of Pražský výběr, but with Klapka on bass! (The original, jazzy Pražský výběr/Prague Selection combo of the 1970s was in fact the complete rhythm section of the Prague Big Band - hence the band name - and thus the Mahagon connection here isn't all too surprising.) So, Kocáb is back on the keys, ex-Bohemia Michal Pavlíček played guitar and Jiří Hrubeš was drumming. Further musicians were the ex-Elektrobus and ex-Expanze percussionist Naďa Vávrová as well as a seven-piece horn section. And there's of course Zdena Adamová, who sang lyrics by Pavel Vrba on most of the tracks.

Unlike the 1st LP, the album concept is rather uneven though. A little bit of pathetic pop here, a slice of hard rock there, homeopathic traces of jazz all over. Yet Prameny poznání (The Fountains Of Cognition) stands out as one of the only two instrumental tracks and as a straight funk jazz tune in almost Hancockish manner. This is Klapka at his funkiest. My other favorite would be A kámen tu nechám (And I'll Leave The Stone Here), a wicked funk rock song with Adamová's expressive vocals.

Klapka and Adamová emigrated to the U.S. in 1981. They are running a private music school nowadays.

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Half Czech-in, part 2: Zulu Stomp

Steve Grossman - Zulu Stomp [sample]
from album "Some Shapes To Come", 1974, P.M. Records PMR-002
produced by Gene Perla


original LP sleeve

The second entry in my Half Czech-In sub-series introduces the first solo album by the U.S. saxophonist Steve Grossman (1951) who was at this young age already an ex-Miles Davis soloist. The Czech part belongs to his pianist Jan Hammer jr. (1948), probably the commercially most successful Czech musician of the late 20th century worldwide. Two words: Miami Vice. (I can't add much more to that topic anyway. I disliked the series 20 years ago and I'm pretty sure they didn't become any better over the years. Let alone the horrible soundtrack. Now pardon me while I'm off to the bathroom...)

Hammer jr. was already considered a huge talent in the 1960s Czechoslovakia. His father Jan Hammer sr. was a well known jazz musicians and his mother Vlasta Průchová was an even better known singer, in fact she was the grande dame of Czechoslovak jazz. Junior's first record appearance was on a 1964 Supraphon jazz compilation, a live recording from 1962 (!) with the Junior Trio, his bandmates were then the teenage brothers Miroslav and Alan Vitouš on double bass and drums respectively. In 1967 he composed the soundtrack for the "pop fairy-tale" Šíleně smutná princezna (The Princess Sad Like Crazy) with singers Helena Vondráčková and Václav Neckář in the main roles. In 1968 Hammer jr. emigrated to West Germany, released his first solo album Maliny Maliny on MPS and soon thereafter he headed over to the U.S. where he studied on the Berklee College of Music. In the early seventies he began to work as a sideman, for example for drummer Elvin Jones where he met Grossman, Gene Perla and Don Alias. In 1971 he joined the famous Mahavishnu Orchestra led by John McLaughlin, later he played on Billy Cobham's classic Spectrum, he also recorded with Jeff Beck, Stanley Clarke, Carlos Santana and many others. The ex-Jones rhythm section continued to work together through the seventies as well, they played e.g. with the flutist Jeremy Steig on Energy (a.k.a. Fusion). To make a long story short, Hammer jr. became a busy guy.

Some Shapes To Come is a fine little fusion album on the edge between funk, jazz-rock and free-jazz. The recordings were made on three days in September 1973, their spirit is pretty raw and dirty. Zulu Stomp, the third track of the album, kicks off with a nasty and funky drum groove. No wonder, the tune was composed by the drummer and percussionist Don Alias. In comes Hammer's Moog and Perla's bass playing a catchy unisono riff, followed by a straight and simple saxophon theme. Hammer then takes off with a spaced out Moog solo. Yeah, that's the classic modal funk jazz mood of the early seventies. Gettin' down with the Zulu stomp... baby!

Some Shapes To Come is for sale in my record store right now; for my personal taste there's just a little too much free-jazz on the album. I'm also selling other Jan Hammer albums: one from 1979 called simply Hammer which is a straight pop-rock record (audio samples); once someone gave it to me and unlike the Grossman LP you can have it really cheap. Then there are also Lenny White and Joni Mitchell LPs with Hammer's participation. Czech them out, just search for "hammer" (you may ignore Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer popping up along).

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Return of Gemini

Mefisto - Návrat Gemini [sample]
from 10 inch compilation album "Hity Karla Svobody", 1968, Supraphon 0230414


original 1968 compilation sleeve (front/back)

Last sunday the 68 years old composer Karel Svoboda committed suicide, without any obvious or publicly known motive as it seems. I'm definitely not a friend of the vast majority of his immense work, but being probably the only Czech retro music blog writing in an easy to understand international language - i.e. not in Czech - I thought I might still honor him with one of his earliest and internationally less known compositions. Svoboda has been featured on Funky Czech-In already: for Marie Rottrová & Flamingo he wrote the outstanding pop-funk tune Kruh světla (Ring Of Light) (which I've translated falsely as Circle Of Light though), for Jiří Schelinger he wrote Závodník (The Racer) and likely he was involved in its production, too.

Mefisto, founded by Svoboda with the saxophonist František Kopal in 1963, used to be one of the first professional beat groups in Czechoslovakia. From the beginning they inclined more to the easy listening genre and that attitude secured them a lot of gigs and recording jobs with major Czech pop artists at times when a beat rhythm section seemed acceptable to the conservative Supraphon producers. Among their members were the later Golden Kids bass player and successful lyricist Zdeněk Rytíř or the guitarist Otakar Jahn. But Svoboda soon realized that he's able to compose pop hits and schlagers à go-go, thus for most parts he left the beat and rock behind. In the 1970s he began to write movie and TV scores, later also musicals. Among his best known work is certainly the movie soundtrack for Tři oříšky pro Popelku (Three Hazelnuts For Cinderella). He composed lots of hits for Karel Gott, like Lady Carneval or Včelka Mája (Biene Maja/Maya The Bee). And of course in the 70s and 80s there were dozens of other Svoboda-penned pop tunes and scores that made us want to puke each time we turned on the Czechoslovak socialistic radio or TV. Yeah, Mefisto. Nomen est omen...

Svoboda's Návrat Gemini (Return Of Gemini) from 1966 isn't exactly funky, at least not in the intended sense. Instead it sounds more like a Shadows rip-off that's a bit late to the party. But it's still adequate enough for this post since there aren't many Mefisto solo recordings anyway and this one in particular features Svoboda's piano quite prominently. It's not a strict instrumental, the cheesy background vocals were added by the ubiquitous Lubomír Pánek Singers & Swingers (a.k.a. Sbor Lubomíra Pánka) who appeared possibly on more Czech records than anyone else in the history of recorded music; just in my hopelessly incomplete collection of Czech vinyl Pánek shows up on not less than 116 entries in my database.

Návrat Gemini has been originally released as a single in West Germany on the Montana label. On the 10 inch mono compilation Hity Karla Svobody (Karel Svoboda's Hits) from 1968 it sort of represents the early Mefisto era. The other seven songs are Svoboda's best early compositions for other artists: Depeše, Nechte zvony znít and Tajuplnej hráč for Marta Kubišová, Zimní království for Yvonne Přenosilová or the nice beat ballad Stín katedrál for Helena Vondráčková and Václav Neckář. All of that stuff has been reissued on the original artists' CDs, Návrat Gemini is available on this compilation so get it if you seriously need it.

Weekend

Petr & Pavel ORM - Víkend [sample]
from album "Discofil", 1979, Panton 81130080
produced by ORM & Svatoslav Rychlý


original LP sleeve

Petr & Pavel Orm are by no means brothers. The keyboarder and the guitarist are known as Petr Dvořák and Pavel Růžička, respectively. Originally they were members of the Jan Václavík orchestra, a.k.a. Golem, who used to back the controversial pop singer Josef Laufer, among others. In the late seventies the multi-instrumental duo started to record for the Panton label as ORM.

Their first album Discofil (The Discophile) is a compactly sounding collection of twelve rather short disco tracks. Some of them are pretty cheesy, usually the vocal ones. Others may even come quite funky when lots of Fender Rhodes piano was used, like in Peklo and Riviera. The tracks are not overproduced, only seven of them were recorded with the help from Golem drummer Vladimír Grunt (ex-Atlantis) and the Framus 5 bass player Michal Bláha. An uncredited female choir appears here and there, too. The credits mention the use of an "ORM rytmic computer", what ever that was; Czechs are quite known for their creative home-made inventions. The influence of European electro-disco becomes clear by inclusion of the only cover version, Magic Fly by Space, which is neither much better nor much worse than the original (depending on your actual opinion on the original in the first place).

In the eighties ORM were the team behind the popular female disco duo Kamélie, producing synth-pop crap en masse. But in any case they definitely belong to the pioneers of electronic pop music in Czechoslovakia, along with Alexander Goldscheider (a.k.a. Odysseus) and Alojz Bouda.

By the way, Víkend is a Czech word that has been adopted directly from the English language and means, you guessed it, "weekend". Have a nice one...

Without her

Helena Vondráčková & TOČR - Jsem bůh i ďábel (Without Her) [sample]
from album "Ostrov Heleny", 1970, Supraphon 1130839
produced by Bohuslav Ondráček & Vladimír Popelka
Václav Týfa & Konstelace Josefa Vobruby - Bez ní (Without Her) [sample]
from album "Václav Týfa", 1975, Supraphon 1131599
produced by Oskar Jelínek, arranged by Vladimír Popelka


original LP sleeves (Vondráčková/Týfa)

Here is a "double feature" with a "triple connection": both tracks were conducted by the TOČR leader Josef Vobruba (1932-1982), co-produced by arranger Vladimír Popelka and both are cover versions of the same song, Without Her by Harry Nilsson. Nilsson's original from 1967 is a very minimalistic version with its cello accompaniment, other mostly softly arranged renditions have been recorded for example by Blood Sweat & Tears, George Benson or Glen Campbell. Besides of his songwriting, Nilsson also became quite "famous" as John Lennon's drinking buddy in the mid seventies.

Regular readers will surely remember my Vondráčková entry from last December when we dived deep into her jazz-rock phase. Jsem bůh i ďábel (I'm The God As Well As The Devil) is not nearly as funky as that. It's pure easy listening pop with a very light touch of bossa nova. The "funkiness" lies more in tiny details as well as in the atmosphere. I like in particular the brilliant dynamic arrangement which precisely illustrates the excellent original Czech lyrics by old maestro Zdeněk Borovec. The story is a confession of a seductress. At one moment she's soft and lovely, the next second she burns you with passion. She's the god and the devil, Cain and Abel in one person and she promises you both heaven and hell at the same time. Yeah guys, there's definitely no hypocrisy on the lady's part since you've been warned. This here is the hottest version of Without Her that I know.

Jsem bůh i ďábel comes from Helena Vondráčková's second solo LP Ostrov Heleny (The Island Of Helena, not to be confused with her English export album The Isle Of Helena), recorded between 1969 and 1970. It's the album's only track that has been produced with the TOČR (a.k.a. JOČR) orchestra. All other songs are credited to the Golden Kids Orchestra & Chorus - which of course includes Marta Kubišová and Václav Neckář, for more info on them check out my first Marta Kubišová post (and more is about to come later this year). Ostrov Heleny is a much softer album than Kubišová's classic Songy a balady or both Golden Kids LPs, however. You can buy a CD online including 9 singles only bonus tracks or get the vinyl from a Czech auction site. Some singles are still available in my web shop, too, if you search there for "vondr".

~

The trumpet player Václav Týfa (1943) oscillates between pop and jazz. His career started in 1962 in the Karel Vlach Orchestra. In the early 1970s he switched to the backing band of Karel Gott, the Ladislav Štaidl Orchestra. At the same time he also worked with Josef Vobruba's TOČR/JOČR. In 1974 Vobruba set up and conducted an all-star album project named Konstelace (The Constellation). The member list on this first effort is indeed stellar: besides of Týfa there are Radim Hladík (Blue Effect, ex-Matadors) and Petr Janda (Olympic) on guitars, Jiří Urbánek (Flamingo) on bass, Rudolf Rokl (Štaidl Orchestra) on Hammond organ, JOČR members Zdeněk Dvořák on guitar, Karel Růžička on piano and drummer Josef Vejvoda, Miroslav Kokoška (Czech TV Orchestra) on marimba, the flutist Jiří Válek (who got to record his own Konstelace solo album two years later) as well as jazzmen Ivan Dominák and Jiří Kysilka on percussions and Karel Velebný on vibes. Obviously the original concept of the project was to produce a series of albums that would feature exceptional soloists who were working in contemporary Czech pop/jazz orchestras at that time. But as far as I know, no other Konstelace albums besides of Týfa's and Válek's have ever been released.

Although Týfa later recorded lots of solo tunes for radio, TV or for movie soundtracks, this LP actually remains his only solo record to this day. He blows his trumpet in many shades, using lots of overdubs and sound effects, even a wah-wah pedal on some tracks. Side one is an original jazz-rock suite in six parts, Loutna česká (The Czech Lute), written by the arranger and co-producer Vladimír Popelka. On side two Popelka selected and re-arranged six tunes from the Blood Sweat & Tears repertoire like Mama Gets High, So Long Dixie, or the obligate Spinning Wheel which fortunately received an unusual jazzy treatment in 6/8. Without Her on the other hand has been funked up a lot, although I could live fine without the cheesy vocal parts since all other tracks sound fine without them, too...

These days Týfa works again with the Czech Radio Big Band or with the Vlach Orchestra and he can be heard on various CDs, too. The Konstelace vinyl album is really tough to find online, unless you are willing to pay real BIG bucks to these Japanese guys. But while the record may be "über-rare" in Japan, in Prague I've seen it many times for a Euro or two.

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 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).

Let's go to play

Jazzový orchestr Československého rozhlasu (JOČR) - Pojďme si hrát [sample]
from album "Jubileum", 1980, Supraphon 11152730
arranged and conducted by Kamil Hála, produced by Svatopluk Rychlý, Vlastimil Hála & Antonín Matzner.


original LP sleeve

Funky Czech-In wouldn't be nearly as funky if I would ignore Czech jazz big bands. The Czech big band tradition dates back almost to the early days of jazz. Among the best post-war orchestras were those lead by Gustav Brom, Karel Vlach, Zdeněk Barták or Karel Krautgartner. Today I'll introduce you to the Czechoslovak Radio Orchestra, nowadays known as the Czech Radio Big Band, originally founded by Krautgartner in 1960. In 1963 the orchestra was sort of "split" into JOČR (Jazz Orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio) and its alter ego TOČR (Dance Orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio), both with identical personnel. When led by Josef Vobruba, then the "TOČR" label was mostly used while backing pop artists of all kinds, playing genres from foxtrot, easy listening or soul-beat of the sixties, to pop, disco and muzak of the seventies and eighties. As "JOČR" on the other hand the same orchestra continued to perform and record as an independent contemporary jazz big band, even going through a third stream period in the mid 1960s. Yet in this musically quite schizophrenic situation JOČR maintained to keep the high level of its work, mostly thanks to its longtime leader Kamil Hála. Hála, born 1931, was with the orchestra from the very beginning, originally as its pianist and from 1963 on as the bandleader and arranger of the orchestra's jazz repertoire. He also composed some of the crucial early tunes like Město v mlze (Foggy Town) or Portrét (Portrait). In 1971 he and his brother Vlastimil were one of the pioneers of progressive jazz/rock fusion when they melted JOČR with the legendary prog-rock group Blue Effect for the Nová syntéza (New Synthesis) album.

As its title hints, the album Jubileum (Jubilee) was issued to celebrate JOČR's (and in fact also TOČR's) twentieth anniversary, although the recording sessions already took place between 1978 and 1979. The producers were obviously planning ahead being aware of Supraphon's ultra-long manufacturing terms. It's by no means a "retro" album but luckily the staff also did fine without participating on the then popular disco-jazz vogue; after all they were recording enough of disco as TOČR already. Thus the album sounds more like coming from the pre-disco era which is certainly a good thing. Side one takes off with Hála's tight funk fusion Pouštím si draka (Flying My Kite), followed by three more or less conventional but swinging jazz tunes, the only cover being Desmond's Eleven Four. The birthday party continues on side two with another Hála composition, a cool latinesque blues jam in 6/4: Pojďme si hrát (Let's Go To Play). Five minutes of punchy horns, solid jazz-funk rhythm section, nice guitar, sax and trumpet solos and on top of the cake an explosive drums/conga duet. Other tracks worth mentioning in our context are the already quite known melancholic Kapka rosy (Dew Drop) and the joyous latin fusion A Go Go full of polyrhythmic drum'n'perc breaks (the same tune has been re-recorded as Agogo by Jazz Cellula for the Panton Mini Jazz Klub series one year later; Jazz Cellula was in fact JOČR minus the big band horn section at that time).

The line-up is very similar to most of the earlier 1970s JOČR/TOČR recordings. Besides of the other two original members, Milan Ulrich on tenor sax and Miroslav Koželuh on trombone, we're hearing the rhythm section Karel Růžička (p), Zdeněk Dvořák (g), Petr Kořínek (b) and Josef Vejvoda (dr). The other saxes were Miroslav Krýsl, Petr Král, Bedřich Kuník and František Kryka. On trumpets: Václav Král, Jiří Hlava, Jan Čapoun and Laco Déczi. More trombones were played by Josef Bažík Pavelka, Jiří Doubrava and Svatopluk Košvanec. And on percussion, you guessed it, there's the ubiquitous Jiř