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George Mraz / Iva Bittova: Moravian Gems
by Kurt Gottschalk
Over some twenty years of recording, the Czech violinist and singer Iva Bittova has done folk, classical and new music, recording with guitarist Fred Frith among others. What she hadn't done, by her own admission, was venture into jazz. That changed when she began working with her countryman, bassist George Mraz. Mraz worked with both the Stan Getz quartet and Czech pianist Emil Viklicky in the 1970s, and has continued to be a sought-after player in the ...
read moreOndrej Pivec / Organic Quartet: Don't Get Ideas
by Budd Kopman
Ondrej Pivec and his Organic Quartet burn white hot on Don't Get Ideas, from the very first notes of the opening Mr. Littleroot's Green Room," by Jakob Dolezal, the group's tenorist. Living deeply within the R&B organ trio vibe, yet updating it with their personalities, these youngsters clearly live to play. The question of originality and derivativeness does not really apply here. Much like Scott Hamilton, who plays inside his chosen style with total honesty, these musicians--organist ...
read moreOndrej Pivec / Organic Quartet: Don't Get Ideas
by Nic Jones
The musicians who make up this classic" organ-led small combo have technique and ideas in abundance. The music they make is a considerable distance from the grits 'n' gravy circuit with which such groups might once have been associated, and Ondrej Pivec's harmonic and melodic senses, in particular, are more akin to Larry Young than, say, Baby Face Willette. To hear Pivec on McCoy Tyner's Inception," for example, is to witness a musician quite unselfconsciously mining a rich musical seam ...
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