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Iva and Ida do jazz

An American-style show a la Moravia
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By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
January 3rd, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Ladies of jazz. Iva Bittová and her sister Ida Kelarová bring their brand of jazz standards to Lucerna for one night.
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Iva Bittová & Ida Kelarova: JAZZ with special guests

When: Saturday, Jan. 5, at 8 p.m.
Where: Grand Hall, Lucerna
Tickets: 390–690 Kč

Iva Bittová, the best-known avant-garde singer/musician on the Czech music scene, joins her elder sister, Ida Kelarová, another powerful vocalist, for a rare (and their first ever) gala jazz performance Jan. 5, at Lucerna’s classy Grand Hall.
Earlier this year, Bittová moved to the United States from her home in Moravia, for a temporary stay, and she’s busy there touring and working on various music projects with musicians. “I decided to be near musicians with whom I like to play, and also most of the interest in my music comes from the United States,” she writes via e-mail. “It is a very big change and a new step in my life — not so easy — but very important for me.”
Bittová is currently living in New York State with her 16-year-old son. As she says, “I found a place near the Hudson River in the forest, where birds sing different songs, and it is much more quiet. There is no bus stop in front of my window.”
Bittová will be making a special return to Prague for this concert, which she says will also be a new musical experience for her. “The jazz concert will be just an exclusive one night with many musicians,” she states. It will be an American-style show from the ’50s, when bands were led by divas like Ella Fitzgerald. But in this case, Iva and Ida will lead with guests, including the eminent American bassist George Mraz, Slovak jazz singer Miriam Bayle, a string quartet and 20 other Czech and Slovak jazz musicians.
“The idea came from my sister Ida, from her team of people, who are doing international vocal programs with her,” Bittová explains. “I just remember as a child, we were singing together lots of songs, also listening to classic jazz music with my parents. Somehow I feel that this concert will remind me of our childhood. I am looking forward to this very much.”
Bittová had never tried performing jazz though, until very recently in her 2007 recording “Moravian Gems,” with George Mraz, pianist Emil Vikličky, and drummer Laco Tropp. For this project, Vikličky has taken interpreted Moravian folk music as well as a little Janiček, into jazz arrangements, and Bittová sings these intriguing and sublime songs (in Czech), or she does vocal improvisation, sometimes jumping in on her violin.
However, “Moravian Gems” does not swing, and so it’s not part of the jazz show at Lucerna. The sisters will only be singing jazz standards and, as Bittová says, “We got a lot of songs from friends, and there is a big choice of different artists, of course, like Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Billie Holliday, etc. Most of the songs I don’t know, and I have to learn them very carefully.”
In the Czech film Tajnosti, also released this summer, Bittová played the leading role as an unhappily married woman, searching for a deeper meaning in her life. Nina Simone’s death (in 2003 and announced on CTV news in the film) plays an indirect role in the heroine’s personal crisis, and Simone’s music haunts the audience, throughout the film. “I like most of the songs from Nina Simone. Of course, her interpretation is very special, and really thanks to the movie Tajnosti I was able to know her much better. I like to find my own way of singing these songs, and I hope that I find it. For example, her version of ‘Little Girl Blue’ is awesome. I would like to sing this song close to her arrangement,” Bittová says.
Bittová hopes to tour the “Moravian Gems” project in Europe later. “Hopefully, we will play one day. … I have a new program with George Mraz,” Bittová says.
“It’s a duo and we have some of our arrangements of songs from ‘Moravian Gems,’ but also some other original pieces. We started to play this new program, this year in September, in New York and in other places, and it was great! My bigger tour around Europe, including the Czech Republic, will be next year, in July 2008. Time goes so fast.”

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (3/01/2008):

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