Along with Mozart and Shostakovich, this has been an anniversary year for Jaroslav Ježek, a seminal 20th-century Czech composer. Concerts honoring the centenary of his birth have been held in venues ranging from jazz clubs to the Czech Museum of Music, with the capstone coming next week at the Rudolfinum, Prague's most prestigious music venue.

This special jazz concert features a 20-piece big band made up of musicians from the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the local jazz scene, conducted by Czech jazzman Milan Svoboda. The program includes pieces by Ježek, along with contemporary works by current jazz stars Svoboda and Emil Viklický.

"Ježek wrote surprisingly original music — of course, in jazz writing," says Viklický. "His basic inspiration was American jazz, but he was able to add elements of his own."

Though Ježek was virtually unknown outside his homeland, his jazz and popular music compositions were extremely popular here during the years between the two World Wars. Ježek was also the third name in the famous Czech theater trio "V + W + J" — initials signifying the last names of Jiří Voskovec, Jan Werich and Ježek and for their Liberated Theater.

Because of their anti-fascist plays, such as The Donkey and the Shadow, which depicted Hitler's coup in Germany, the group was shut down soon after the Munich Treaty so as not to endanger the "public order" of the newly organized state. To avoid further persecution, the three men emigrated in 1939 to New York City, where Ježek suffered an untimely death two years later, at the age of 35, due to kidney failure and pneumonia.

Viklický recalls a legendary story: "In 1941, after Ježek died, his friends Voskovec and Werich were preparing a live broadcast in the RCA studio in New York. They listened to a recording made by Ježek's orchestra back in Prague circa 1936-38, before all of them escaped to the United States because of the Nazis. Benny Goodman walked into the studio and asked, 'Who is this? The Jimmy Luncenford Band?' The two men told him, 'No, it is our friend Jaroslav Ježek and his orchestra. That's what we used to play in Prague.' 'A European band? It's impossible, don't pull my leg!' Goodman said as he left, shaking his head."

"What is great about this concert is that the players from the Philharmonic are younger and eager to play jazz," Viklický says.

His second piece, commissioned by the Rudolfinum for the concert, is titled "Jezkiana." It utilizes motives of Ježek's, reworked for the modern era.

Viklický points out that he is not the only one to be influenced by Ježek. "Jazz players use his songs exactly the same way U.S. players use Tin Pan Alley songs," Viklický says. "We call them standards."