Blowing their horns

Prague has several good, centrally located jazz clubs, but their schedules are generally indistinguishable. The same bands and players rotate through the clubs every month, playing the same predictable music. Meanwhile, the bigger international names play only large venues, more often than not classical music halls.  

But the city's newest jazz club, Jazz Dock, seems bent on changing the rules. Its upcoming Saxophone Week Festival features three first-rate groups from abroad and two promising new local acts over six nights (Sept. 7-12).

The week opens with the headline band, the New York-based trio Fly: Larry Grenadier on acoustic bass, Jeff Ballard on drums and Mark Turner on saxophone. Grenadier and Ballard are the remarkable rhythm section of one of the most acclaimed groups in modern jazz, the Brad Mehldau Trio. The last time the Brad Mehldau Trio played Prague (in 2007), it was a sold-out engagement at the Rudolfinum. So the chance to see two-thirds of that phenomenal trio at the intimate Jazz Dock seems almost too good to be true.

Ballard is a recent addition to the Brad Mehldau Trio, replacing the original drummer, Jorge Rossy. He was a founding member of Fly, which was called the Jeff Ballard Trio when the three players first got together in 2000. Ballard and Grenadier go back even further than that, to their days as teenage friends in California in the early 1980s.

Grenadier and Ballard wouldn't be coming, however, if it weren't for tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, who has played and recorded with Mehldau, Lee Konitz, Dave Holland and Paul Motian, among others. He has been described by Mehldau as playing with a direct candor, a compliment usually reserved for much older players. Turner's playing on the song "Stark" on Fly's first, eponymously titled CD (2004, on Savoy Records) is a slow, elegant strut down a mysterious dark alley on a sultry summer evening. As for the group's overall sound, Ballard has probably described it best, as an "intimate band with teeth."

The following two evenings will feature the Ken Vandermark Frame Quartet from Chicago. The highly acclaimed Vandermark is an avant-garde saxophonist, clarinet player and composer as well as MacArthur Fellowship award winner. His band includes Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello, Nate McBride on electric bass and Tim Daisy on drums. Together, they bring a punchy, big city groove-meets-free jazz snarl that other jazz clubs in Prague rarely allow on their stages.

A few younger Czech groups also have their share of time at the festival. The Ondřej Štveráček Quartet, featuring Štveráček on saxophone, is a promising new force on the Czech scene. Then there is the Pigeon Saxophone Quartet & Tellemark from Plzeň, which walks the line between modern improvisational jazz and contemporary classical music.   

The final concert of the festival will feature the Hans Ulrik Quartet from Denmark. Ulrik (born in 1965) has recorded with some highly regarded jazz eldermen, including Steve Swallow, Mino Cinelu, Gary Peacock and John Scofield. His modern, at times even nu jazz, is atmospheric, with songs building up slowly from ambient sounds to boiling peaks, led by his scorching saxophone.  

Every night of the Saxophone Week Festival holds promise, as does Jazz Dock itself, the youngest but most ambitious jazz club in town. And the season has just begun.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at
features@praguepost.com