Since 2006, when I interviewed Czech jazz pianist Emil Viklický at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library for an article on the Web site All About Jazz, our careers have become increasingly interconnected. After writing about him in a variety of contexts and seeing him perform both in the U.S. and the Czech Republic, we have decided to formalize things somewhat: Emil has asked me to be his North American publicist and media consultant.
I’ll continue stewarding his public profiles (particularly his All About Jazz and Wikipedia) sites, as well as acting on his behalf with various high-profile venues. This page is presently only in the early stages of development — I’ll be adding other things and updating it quite a bit over the next few weeks. I hope to present as much information as possible about Emil for his fans around the world, including recent and upcoming CD releases, gigs, and other items of interest.
The latest such item is Emil’s most recent CD, Live In Vienna, slated for release in early 2010. I’m especially enthused about the release of this great recording because I wrote the liner notes for it — the fulfillment of a long-standing professional ambition of mine! I’m very grateful to Mr. Paul Vlcek, owner of Cube-Metier Records, for inviting me to be associated with this project; I consider it an honor. [read my notes here]
Another recently released item is a collected transcription of several Viklický compositions for piano, including the title song “Green Satin” (Zalený Satén), one of his earliest tunes — and a personal favorite of mine. This book is highly recommended for any serious student of jazz piano. (For some comments from Emil and purchase information, click the image at right)
Under “Upcoming Events” in the sidebar to your right you’ll see listed a an event this coming April at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. UNL’s Center for Great Plains Studies is hosting an inter-disciplinary scholarly symposium titled “Czech & Slovak Americans: International Perspectives from the Great Plains.” One of the two papers I’ll be delivering at that symposium, “From Moravia to Iowa … and Back,” will discuss Emil’s incorporation of traditional Moravian folk music with modern jazz, paralleling over the past three decades what Czech composer Leoš Janáček did with classical music a century earlier.
Any discussion of Emil’s body of work, and by extension Czech jazz, is not only musical but also political. It’s all-too-easy for American jazz fans to forget the circumstances under which Czech jazz musicians (and their fans) made themselves heard during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s.
Emil, who experienced the brutish absurdities of communism as a college student, scored the soundtrack of a just-released Czech film, “Rytmus v patách,” (“Rhythm on the Heels,” roughly translated). It depicts several young jazz musicians and the people around them during the years of Soviet occupation. With elements of espionage and romantic intrigue — generally a good thing in movies — this film presents jazz as a political statement in the face of totalitarianism. And the music, naturally, is top-notch. The CD accompanying this movie is not being released commercially, but only being used for promotional purposes. [To view the film's Facebook page, click here]
One of my recent Warrior of God promotional events, sponsored by the Chicago Czech Consulate in February, had a connection to Emil, as the picture above shows. Emil — and two VERY illustrious sidemen, George Mraz and Billy Hart — are seen here performing at the Spertus Museum in Chicago. Emil & Co. were providing musical entertainment for a tourism and trade fair, “The Motivation Show 2008,“ organized by the Consulate, among others. As a result, Consul General Marek Skolil, whom I very much enjoyed meeting at my book presentation, and I share Emil as a mutual friend.
Below are some self-explanatory links I’m in the process of putting together:
