JazzFest Brno, Czech Republic 2003

The second annual JazzFest Brno opened with Czech double bassist Jaromir Honzak and his international quintet. The program was comprised of compositions from his current album Present Past, which also was christened during the concert. In his group concept Honzak emphasizes harmony and playing with atmosphere. His music lacks strict jazz timing and its rhythmic contours are very foggy. In this respect his playing was sympathetic with drummer Lukasz Zyta and pianist Michal Tokaj, whose collective performance resembled a painter quietly putting on layers of tones to complete a picture in sound. For that matter, they are Polish, and Polish jazz is world famous just for that kind of sound. Quiet waves of sound were interrupted only by Polish post-bop saxophonist Piotr Baron and guitarist Christian Rover, who can't deny inspiration from John Scofield's style of playing. Sophisticated harmonies, long intensifying spaces, decomposing emotions, profound empathy - these are the moments which characterize a high quality performance of the Honzak Quintet. And, as a tribute to the jazz tradition, they chose “On Green Dolphin Street” for their encore, swinging with pleasure.

Thursday night was reserved for Slovak bass guitar king Juraj Griglak and his project, the Bass Friends. The current members include guitarist Matus Jakabcic (who also contributed to the album of the same name), violinist Stano Paluch, and drummer Peter Solarik. Griglak skillfully rearranged the compositions from the CD so that they did not lose integrity, even though he had to omit the brass section and rich washes of keyboard. They were replaced by Jakabcic's guitar synth. Stano Paluch perfectly simulated the guitar funk grooves using a wah-wah pedal. In talking about Paluch I cannot help but add that he is a talent which the Slovak jazz scene has long been awaiting - a technically flawless violinist, improvisationally inventive, stylistically inclusive (from bop to fusion). A welcome surprise for me was drummer Peter Solatik, whom I have known as a swinging member of the group Nothing But Swing, but this time he proved that funk presents no problem for him. Griglak's grooves are still incredibly fast, amazingly catchy and very energetic. Bass Friends literally brought the Fleda club down with their musically inventive jazz-funk show.

Friday's program started in the afternoon, which influenced its attendance. Those who didn't make the performance missed one of the best shows of the festival - the Milos Suchomel Quartet, a combo composed of the most outstanding musicians of the young (Czecho)Slovak jazz generation. The leader of the group, saxophonist Milos Suchomel, is definitely not an introverted player. His solos were literally eruptions of tones, full of energy and emotion, delivered with his typical ironic casualness. The resemblance to Sonny Rollins could hardly be ignored. Another group member, Ondrej Krajniak, is a prototypical mainstream pianist. He bases his style on the synthesis of the pillars of the jazz piano art, from Oscar Peterson to McCoy Tyner. His playing is full of exciting tension. Czech bassist Robert Balzar, whose name is a virtual guarantee of extraordinary playing, took care of the bass line. Drummer Marian Sevcik, who nowadays is also a highly sought after sideman, provided a stable drive and necessary intensification. Such a modern mainstream jazz group with riveting post bop rides would definitely stand out more in front of a full house, a fact which was later confirmed to me by Suchomel himself, even though the performance still bore an export quality label.

The evening program belonged to Miriam Bayle, a Slovak singer who is a part of the Prague jazz scene. Miriam performed during the first year of the JazzFest, which may have influenced the fact that she was given another opportunity to perform this year. In the interim she changed her group and enriched its sound by inviting a tenor saxphonist, but that was the only significant change. Everything else stayed the same - jazz standards in a conservative straight-ahead interpretation, playful collaboration within a group framework, positive emotions and joy – transmitted beautifully to the audience (this time a full auditorium). Arguably the best piece of the night was the Parker's "Donna Lee," which Miriam scatted at a breakneck tempo that even saxophonist Radek Zapadlo could hardly follow.

The festival continued with a Saturday's afternoon performance of the Polish girl quartet The Sound Office with piano and bass accompaniment. The initiator of the project is pianist and arranger Aleksander Mazur, who selected the ensemble from students at the Wroclaw music school. Their renditions of musical melodies by Jerome Kern and Cole Porter, but also more challenging compositions (e.g. Coltrane's "Giant Steps"), were on one hand old-fashioned, but on the other charming in a way and, considering the age of the singers, also surprisingly convincing. The impression from the performance was a bit spoiled by compositions of a vaudevillian nature (e.g. a prank comprised of period hits in Russian) and Mazur's jovial moderating "enriched" by joke cracking.

Prime time was obviously reserved for the official headliner, American singer Nnenna Freelon. Her resume is impressive: numerous Grammy nominations, collaborations with Ray Charles, Dianne Reeves or Al Jarreau and other stars. In Brno she performed material from her current record, Tales of Wonder - renditions of Stevie Wonder's classics. The combination of her dominating voice with her group's playing created a single organism which emitted a strong bluesy aura. Freelon sang with nuances in intonation that reflected a lightness equal to the audience's emotions. She wrapped swing standards, Latin pieces, and Wonder's hits in sexy swivel-hipped grooves. She was able to create dramatic tension as well as a pleasant sense of relief. Even though her performance was not purely jazz, Nnenna Freelon and her ensemble brought into each of the compositions a dose of a real black spice, precisely the element that makes jazz what it is.

The last day of the festival was opened by the JazzFest Supeband. This project, created exclusively for the festival, consisted of mostly Brno musicians under the arranging leadership of trombonist Petr Blaha. A setting with four brass instruments plus a rhythm section offered ample space for this arranger to put a significant stamp on the music. The group's repertoire contained mostly of jazz standards and some originals by Peter Blaha. A few arrangements were inspired by the early work of Gil Evans, others sort of resembled the Jazz Messengers. Although the main goal of this project was to stir up a local music scene, the performance had memorable qualities - arrangements and interpretation alike.

The event after the festival was truly stellar: Arthur Blythe and his quartet. This renowned American saxophonist entered the jazz scene at a time when mainstream jazz was being fused with free jazz. He has never fallen under any genre conventions and has eagerly floated among various streams. His current group made sure that the conventions and standards would again be rendered irrelevant. The sound of Blythe's saxophone (by the way, very delicious, as the Americans say) was complemented by Gust Tsilis on marimba, Bob Stewart on tuba and Cecil Brooks on drums. The marimba and tuba did not just mechanically replace the more traditional instruments of piano and bass, but instead took advantage of all their attributes (e.g. the rhythmical possibilities of the marimba or the tuba as a second brass instrument in the group). The music had with little in common with jazz as it's typically understood. If you distill the essence of jazz to long hypnotic rhythmical structures, collective improvisation, group empathy, dramatic climaxes and subtle micro-tension, and add to this instrumental virtuosity, than Blythe's concert was jazz par excellence.

The second year of the JazzFest Brno has passed. It featued an increased number of performers and a broader variety of genres (which was a weakness of the festival's first year). Even though the core of the event was based on the two top American acts and the rest was comprised of members of the Czech and Slovak scene, I did not notice a significant difference in artistic quality between the two – a pleasant discovery. I consider the extension of the festival to five days as a disadvantage. I can understand that economic factors led the organizers to this concept, but in the end listeners, especially those outside Brno, are handicapped. I believe this is a consequence of searching for the optimal festival concept. The positive factors still include rich social life, a pleasant atmosphere, nightly jam sessions, and a workshop for jazz students; and this year the whole event was brought to the awesome space of the Fleda club. I do not wish to be a prophet, but I think a strong and successful tradition is being born in Brno.

Website: http://www.jazzfestbrno.cz

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