Technically perhaps the most progressive living saxophonist and, without exaggeration, a cult figure among jazz saxophonists.

This won’t be Chris Potter’s first appearance in Brno.  He made his local debut with Pat Metheny’s Unity Band, the concert which took place in 2012. Potter helped make that performance spectacular with his dynamic playing. In 2017, he performed again in Brno with his own quartet. In addition to working for other bandleaders, he has long since emerged as a respected composer and leader himself, and as it is widely believed one of the leading jazz musicians of his generation.

Potter was born in the early 1970s and was shaped primarily by the music of 1980s and 1990s, the age of the resurrection of straight-ahead jazz. His prodigious beginnings in Red Rodney’s band are known to many jazz fans, but what made him famous were his apprenticeship years in 1990s. When he totally mastered his skills in the 2000s, he began composing much more complicated structures, largely under the influence of his other employers, Dave Douglas and Dave Holland. It is more than certain that Holland influenced Potter’s composing nature so much that we can still hear it in Potter’s work today. Indeed, he confirmed it years ago in an interview with Harmony magazine: “I’ve actually been interested in the odd metres for quite a long time, but the fact that I could be in Dave’s band certainly provoked my more intense thinking about them, because I was, broadly speaking, in permanent contact with them.”

Chris Potter is one of the busiest jazz musicians of the day. Although he performed in Brno a few times, the audience can look forward to some new surprises with his current trio.

Line-up:

Chris Potter – saxophone, Craig Taborn – piano, keyboards Nasheet Waits – drums

A singer for whom singing is as simple as breathing. An artist overflowing with imagination and creativity. A woman who, at a time when everything was available on the internet, was still able to create a sensation with her videos. Camille Bertault, however, is by no means a temporary online phenomenon. After all, see for yourself.

Her father is an amateur jazz pianist with whom she often sang. She began playing piano at age 8 and later gained experience at the music conservatory. She listened to singers such as Jeff Buckley, Björk or Serge Gainsbourg as well as Brazilian vocalists. At the age of twenty, she changed direction. She switched to drama and writing and playing sketches for children. “I started singing in cabaret, where I was something between a storyteller and an actor. But it was jazz that had me under its spell,” she recalls. She headed for the Paris Conservatory, which provided her with a solid grounding in harmony, composition and jazz singing.

The next phase of her musical career developed naturally. She recorded herself singing part of Coltrane’s standard Giant Steps. She put the video on YouTube which soon amassed hundreds of thousands of viewings. She then wrote and performed French lyrics to numerous other jazz standards and newer songs. She definitely has no intention of creating music in which the voice serves only as an instrument. She loves lyrics that catch your attention. Camille Bertault’s latest album, Pas de géant, testifies to her appetite for vocal cascades, silky sensitivity, leaning towards acrobatics and overt exuberance. John Coltrane wasn´t able to be around for her arrival, but he´s certainly looking down, smiling.

Line-up:

Camille Bertault – vocals Fady Farah – piano Minino Garay – drums Christophe Minck – double bass, bass guitar

Trumpeter Mathias Eick is a rather untypical representative of Nordic jazz. He stands out from the local scene mainly due to his atmospheric melodies, in which he tends to avoid melancholy. Ravensburg, his latest album, crowns his journey from alented youth to mature artist with unique musical expression.

On his most recent album, as is sually the case, the Norwegian musician draws inspiration from his own life. Where his earlier albums evoked a lifestyle full of travel, discovery and search for new goals, Ravensburg’s leitmotif is now the family: „My inspiration was my family, my beloved wife, my little children who never cease to amaze me, and all the emotional situations that we experience on stage with my other family – the band,” explains ick. The trumpeter, composer and bandleader also played a new role on the new album by adding vocals to is portfolio. His singing is all the more emotional for being wordless. “I‘ve been singing to my children for seven years. And I thought it might be nice to try adding the human voice. Although I have always argued that my voice is my trumpet, singing, especially in conjunction with the violin played in our band by Håkon Aase, works perfectly. Håkon’s playing is a perfect fit for my voice,” said Eick in an interview with UNI magazine, and his words are confirmed by numerous positive reviews on his fourth album with the prestigious ECM label. Though Eick’s work has been changing under the influence of his life experiences, one thing has not changed ever since he started; Mathias Eick is a musician who confirms with each new composition that jazz, as a genre, is open to the full range of life’s influences.

Line-up:

Daniel Brandt, co-founder of Germany’s electroacoustic ensemble Brandt Brauer Frick, joins the Erased Tapes family with his solo debut album Eternal Something – released worldwide on March 24th 2017.

What started off as a more simplistic idea soon evolved into something a lot more complex as the London and Berlin based music producer travelled across the world, experimenting with various other artists and different instruments. From his father’s cabin based in the German countryside with access to nothing but cymbals, to being surrounded by guitars in Joshua Tree, his unexpected journey soon progressed into what became his first solo album. Daniel played nearly all instruments himself with the only exception being fellow musicians Florian Juncker on trombone, Manu Delago on hang drum and Andreas Voss on cello. Using his Berlin studio as his main base for recording, Brandt created an album that encapsulates the idea that despite setting out with a particular creative vision, external influences and environments will always shift the process, and create an Eternal Something.
“The initial idea was to make a cymbal album. I wanted to surround myself with all types of cymbals. I locked myself into my father’s cabin in the woods for three days. That was the moment I realised it was not possible for me to make an album just with cymbals because other ideas and instruments imposed themselves on me. I had a clear sense of what I wanted to do now. The intention was to let the songs evolve by themselves and not edit too much, keep it raw and have an explosion-like energy to them.”

Line-up:

Daniel Brandt – drums/synthesizers, Pascal Bideau – guitar/bass, Florian Juncker – trombone

The American magazine Down Beat ranked it among the top ten big bands in the world. Its concerts hosted the biggest stars of both jazz and pop. This year, Gustav Brom Radio Big Band celebrates 100th birthdayof its founder and has invited Dan Bárta to sing at the anniversary.

Line-up:

Vladimír Valovič – conductor, Dan Bárta – vocals Gustav Brom Radio Big Band

Saxophonist Karel Růžička has lived in New York for over 20 years. He has not renounced his homeland, though, and regularly returns to the Czech Republic. His concerts excel at first impression with untamed energy, but Růžička always holds the reins of the evening firmly in his hands.

Line-up:

Name a brilliant musical talent with only nine letters… The answer is: Alexander. Pianist Joey Alexander is historically the youngest Grammy-nominated musician in the jazz category, and in part due to his teenage years, he has enjoyed media attention – appearing on 60 Minutes and on the main page of the New York Times. But he doesn’t represent a marketing gimmick – since it is his music that makes extraordianary.

Line-up:

Joey Alexander – piano John Davis – drums Kris Funn – double bass

Dave Weckl belongs in the Modern Drummer magazine Hall of Fame, which has also ranked him among the top 25 drummers of all time. Guitarist Tom Kennedy has maintained his aura as a progressive jazz creator since the mid-1980s. Both of their careers have been intertwined for decades, and their onstage interplay is so very finely tuned.

Line-up:

Tom Kennedy – bass guitar Bob Franceschini – saxophone Stu Mindeman – keyboards Dave Weckl – drums

Nubya Garcia, a saxophonist and composer, is a distinctive new face of jazz. Her original sound and compelling work earned her a number of awards already at the beginning of her career. The young London woman excels in her ability to reach a wider audience without any musical calculations.

Nubya Garcia has increased the number of distinctive female jazz saxophonists, who include outstanding players such as Melissa Aldana, Tia Fuller, Grace Kelly, and Lakecia Benjamin. “The backbone of what I listen to is dance music and the sound system culture. The point is that people forget that jazz has always been dance music,” she says in an interview with The Red Bulletin. Her debut EP, Nubya’s 5ive, was released in 2017 and was honoured as “outstanding” by The Vinyl Factory. The title track of the following album When We Are (2018) was even labelled one of the “best songs of 2018” by public service broadcaster NPR. In the same year, Garcia also performed in most of the songs on a compilation project We Out Here, which presents and elevates the contemporary progressive and exciting London jazz scene. In 2018, she won an award from Jazz FM and Sky Arts for “Breakthrough of the Year”. Last year she received the “Jazz Band of the Year” award from FM UK. “We begin to blend in every possible way the different kinds of music that we listen to and love. Our power is in the distinctive sound, the type of places where we play, and even in the mix of listeners we get at our concerts. It’s a natural evolution and I like it,” says Garcia.

Line-up – TBD

Nikol Bóková is primarily through her training and in her focus a classically trained pianist, but by her own admission, she has become addicted to the sound of the classical jazz trio. The Czech jazz discography has been enriched, thanks to Nikola’s fascination and thanks to Animal Music, with the CD Inner Place. It has deservedly achieved high acclaim.

“My lectures take place when I go for a pint with jazzmen and listen to their conversation about music, and then I join in the debates,” she recently confessed in an interview for the Czech Radio jazz programme. The interviewer Milan Tesař added briskly: “What is interesting about Nikola’s album is the fact that she approaches her own “jazz” work from a different angle than is common with trained jazz musicians.”

Nikol Bóková regularly collaborates with leading Czech orchestral ensembles; as a nine-year-old, she first performed as a soloist with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra in Ostrava, with which she still collaborates. Her first self-penned album draws on jazz, classical music and minimalism, and partly also on popular music. Her compositions are simple miniatures, formally precisely polished, with clear traces of the harmonic and melodic refinement of classical piano literature, as well as a way of playing defined by classical interpretation. Perfect technique and control of dynamics are unique in the world of jazz piano. She has invited talented players of the young jazz generation: the double bass player Martin Kocián and the drummer Michał Wierzgoń, who bring a new dimension to her compositions with their experience and jazz background.

Line-up:

Nikol Bóková – piano, Martin Kocián – double bass, Michał Wierzgoń – drums, special guest: David Dorůžka – guitar

The touchstone of every jazz guitarist is playing in a trio with a double bass and drums. It is in this format that Libor Šmoldas, a perennial star of the Czech jazz scene, will perform at this year’s JazzFestBrno. The companions he has invited to his New York trio belong to the absolute summit of world jazz.

Line-up:

Libor Šmoldas – guitar Adam Nussbaum– drums Jay Anderson – double bass

A perfect blend of soul, jazz, rhythm & blues and rock & roll directed by the organist Delvon Lamarro.

The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio was founded in the Spring of 2015 by Amy Novo, the wife and today also the manager of the organist Delvon Lamarr. Doesn’t it sound like a fairy tale? She told her husband that she would take responsibility for his musical career so that all he needed to do in the future was to find teammates, write and play music. Many aspiring musicians, especially jazz musicians, dream of such a story.

The trio originally started with another guitarist and drummer. During the first year of their existence, the band was joined by the renowned and unique Jimmy James. The chemistry among the members of the trio was instantaneous and undeniable. With Delvona´s soulful organ sound, Jimmy´s raw guitar sound and a great drum groove, they mixed the perfect blend of soul, jazz, rhythm & blues and rock & roll. They started their career with a weekly “gig” in Seattle, then released their first album and set out on a tour of the United States and finally on a European tour.
The current drummer is an excellent groover Michael Duffy, so the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio is even further shifting its original sound. The traditional organ trio takes on a new dimension.

Line-up:

Delvon Lamarr – B-3 organ, Jimmy James – guitar, Michael Duffy – drums

An original fusion of hip-hop, R’n’B and jazz by a trio of the pianist who has established himself as one of the leading figures in the coming generation of jazz artists. His trio plays so naturally in the tangle of different styles that it creates modern jazz language.

In 12 years of banding activity, Clayton recorded five albums of his own, he was a sideman in many other studio projects and was involved in countless performances around the world. The New York Times entitled him a “prominent and authoritative figure”. Without a question, Clayton will be remembered as a high-ranked musician in the age-old and rich jazz tradition.

Gerald was born in the Netherlands in 1984 and raised in Southern California. He took his first piano lessons at the age of seven with the support of his father, the acclaimed jazz bassist, composer and bandleader John Clayton. Gerald later moved to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music. In 2006, he won second place in the prestigious Thelonius Monk International Competition. At that time, he was also introduced to the trumpeter Roy Hargrove, he joined his band immediately and was its member between 2006 and 2009. Gerald also appeared on records made by several other major artists, including Diana Krall, Ambrose Akinmusire and the Clayton Brothers Quintet. His latest record, Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard, is a reminder of the artistic freedom of the pre-covid age. It was published by Blue Note, the label representing the family silver of jazz, which Clayton is certainly already part of.

As Clayton does not want to be defined by any particular musical tradition, he will perform in Brno, for the second time in his career, with his long-running trio, and that’s the cooperation which is astonishing the most. “I try to ignore any pigeon-holes, the genre differences. I focus on creating honest music and want to work with people whose ideas resonate within my own,” he says.

Line-up:

Gerald Clayton – piano, Joe Sanders – double bass, Gregory Hutchinson – drums

Izraelský pianista Shai Maestro je v Brně již pravidelným návštěvníkem a jeho vystoupení patří mezi to nejlepší, co Izrael brněnskému JazzFestu doposud nabídl. Jako bývalý spoluhráč basisty Avishaie Cohena tu má zkrátka dveře otevřené dokořán a pokaždé, když do nich znovu vstoupí, oslní.

Shai Maestro začal hrát na klavír ve věku pěti let a jazzovou hudbou byl poprvé okouzlen, když mu bylo osm. Zaujala ho totiž nahrávka Gershwin Songbook od Oscara Petersona. Od chvíle, kdy se Shai poprvé dotknul klaviatury, se postupně proměnil z nadaného dítěte přes vyhledávaného spoluhráče až k sdělnému lídrovi vlastních projektů. Shai Maestro Trio si vydobylo úspěch u publika v proslulých newyorských klubech i jinde ve světě a vydalo řadu velmi oceňovaných nahrávek – Shai Maestro Trio, The Road to Ithaca, Untold Stories, The Stone Skipper.

Nyní přijíždí do Brna, své oblíbené destinace, představit především repertoár ze svého posledního alba Human, které vyšlo, jak už je u Shaie zvykem, na prestižním labelu ECM. Je to vůbec poprvé, kdy jej uvidíme jakožto kapelníka kvarteta. Triovou formaci totiž rozšířil o trumpetistu Philipa Dizacka. „Když Philip hraje na trubku, zní mi to, jako kdyby šlo o lidský hlas, který ke mně promlouvá. Umí přes trubku i křičet nebo šeptat. Přibrat Philipa k triu nás vyneslo na úplně novou úroveň. Jako kdybychom v automobilu najednou nalezli tajný převod a zařadili na jinou rychlost. Pustili jsme se do zcela nového dobrodružství,“ vypráví Shai a těší se, až se po koncertním půstu stane součástí tohoto dobrodružství i živé publikum.

Line-up:

Shai Maestro – klavír, Philip Dizack – trubka, Joe Sanders – kontrabas, Ofri Neyhema – bicí

Double bassist František Uhlíř celebrated his life’s jubilee last year. It was a great occasion to release his record called Story of my life. Of course, the global pandemic thwarted an on-stage celebration of his jubilee. But this fall it can finally happen! A unique septet, with no shortage of foreign guest players, will retell Uhlíř’s story through his own compositions.

František Uhlíř belongs to a generation of players known as the “Czech Bass School”. He was born into a family of musicians as the grandson of a bandleader and the son of a musician, music teacher, composer and bandleader of a jazz big band. He studied piano and played organ in Vladimir Volf’s big beat rock n roll band as a 13-year-old. While studying at the State Conservatory in Brno, he played in the orchestra of Janáček’s opera, the Brno Philharmonic and his father’s jazz quartet.

During his military service in the AUS Symphony Orchestra, he was a co-founder of the jazz quartet (E. Viklický, F. Uhlíř, J. Dušek, J. Růžička) which won the “European extraordinaire” award two years later at the International Jazz Festival in Přerov. Uhlíř himself received the award for the best solo performance. A year later, he became a member of the new SHQ of Karel Velebný and he played mostly in a chamber trio without percussion. By this time, he had totally mastered the double bass and started to compose. His artistic career is astonishing, as he collaborated with prominent Czechoslovak jazz groups and musicians such as Emil Viklický Quartet, Laco Deczi Cellula International, Jiří Stivín Quartet, Karel Růžička, Jana Koubková, Zuzana Lapčíková and Peter Lipa.

Line-up:

TRIO MUH: Roberto Magris – piano, František Uhlíř – double bass, Jaromír Helešic – drums
František Uhlíř – Story From My Life – Music For Septet: František Tomšíček – trumpet, Přemek Tomšícek – trombone, Andy Schofield – alto saxophone, Suzanne Higgins – tenor saxophone, Standa Macha – piano, František Uhliř – double bass, Gregory Hutchinson – drums

A celebration of the jubilee of one of the most important Czech double bass players and who was able to build on his successful Czechoslovak career in Swiss exile. On a unique evening, he will be congratulated by saxophonist Scott Hamilton and singer Jan Smigmator, among others.

Vincenc Kummer graduated as a double bass player from the Brno Conservatory and, as a student, played in many jazz ensembles, including Gustav Brom’s Orchestra. Soon after graduating he moved to Prague and performed with Laco Deczi, Karel Velebný, Jan Hammer, Jiří Stivín, Eva Olmer, Vlasta Průchová, Karel Růžička as well as Emil Viklický. He was a member of the orchestras of Karel Vlach, Ferdinand Havlík and Václav Hybš and accompanied Karel Gott for ten years in the Orchestra of Ladislav Štaidl. Since 1981, Vincent Kummer had been living in Switzerland for 25 years, where he could collaborate on stage with many international jazz legends such as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Slide Hampton, Scott Hamilton, Nat Adderley, Eddie Lockjaw Davis and dozens of others. After returning to his hometown, Brno, he is still an active musician and the member of the local jazz scene and has never stopped composing and arranging.

As one of Kummer’s congratulators, saxophonist Scott Hamilton, came to New York as a 22-year-old and did not succumb to the influence of the contemporary idols, Coltrane and Shorter. On the contrary, he continued to cultivate a swing way of playing and accordingly chose his bandmates. Warren Vache and Ruby Braff played the cornet with him, he did “a battle” with tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips, accompanied singer Rosemary Clooney and was a member of similarly traditional all-star bands. He also played with Sinatra and Bennett.

Jazz and swing singer Jan Smigmator, a part of the 21st century music scene with a nobility of his own, embodies the legacy of swing kings such as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Mel Tormé, Karel Hála and the exceptional Tony Bennett.

Vincenc Kummer is not a musician who stays in his generational bubble and is currently working with a generation of younger musicians. He acts as a repository of highly-valued experience for them and they act as another source of inspiration for him. Quite a functioning musical chemistry. Judge for yourself.

Line-up:

TBA

Sound-treasure hunter, precise minimalist, explorer of details, calm force. Guitarist Bill Frisell is synonymous with style-formation.

He was born in Baltimore and studied clarinet playing at Richard Joiner’s when he was a child, later he fell in love with the sound of the guitar and learned to play it so well that he went to the famed Berklee College of Music. In the early 1980s, his residency in the band of drummer Paul Motian was a breakthrough. Thanks to Motian, Frisell started to work as a studio musician for ECM Records company and released his first studio album, In Line, in 1983. The list of his achievements and accounts of the extraordinary musical journey Bill Frisell has since gone on are numerous, so it comes as no suprise that Frisell is writing memoirs, in his 70s, to be published next spring. We can expect widespread reception of this book by his fans, thanks to his love not only of jazz, but also rock, folk, country, bluegrass and world music.

Bill Frisell is returning to Brno three years after an interrupted outdoor concert in 2018, which was stopped by the police due to vandalism.

Alongside Pat Metheny and John Scofield, Frisell is one of the most influential guitarists of his generation. His view of jazz is completely unique.

Line-up:

Bill Frisell – guitar, Thomas Morgan – double bass, Rudy Royston – drums