The new face of the bass

Sitting in a bustling coffeeshop/secondhand bookstore near his home in Prague 7, the acoustic bassist and composer Jaromír Honzák is a large and calming presence - a characteristic that aptly matches his stature on the contemporary Czech jazz scene, and the expansive music on his award-winning recording Little Things (Animal Records).

"The CD was released Aug. 31, 2009, on the occasion of my 50th birthday," says Honzák. But, due to the mix of musicians, the music has been performed live only a few times. The tenor and soprano saxophonist, Chris Cheek, lives in New York City, while the pianist and keyboardist, Michal Tokaj, and drummer and percussionist Lukasz Zyta live in Poland. Besides Honzák, only guitarist David Dorůžka lives in Prague.

A fortunate bit of scheduling is bringing them back together.

"We were invited to play in Ždár nad Sázavou for the Concentus Moravie Festival," explains Honzák "It is a big classical festival, and this year they have a jazz section. So they are paying for Chris Cheek and the Polish musicians to come to Czech Republic. They are all great players."

Playing with Cheek in particular, Honzák says, is a special treat. "He is a musician's musician, I met him 20 years ago at the Berklee College of Music. Now he plays as a sideman in Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra, as well as with Carla Bley, and Paul Motian, so he is one of the few important saxophonists in New York City. He also has his own projects, four or five CDs under his name on the Fresh Sound label."

Though Little Things won an Anděl award for the best Czech "Jazz & Blues" recording, Honzák feels ambivalent about the category.

"The music does not fit the jazz category," he says. "It is more influenced by other music in general. I feel myself influenced by pop music, electro, dance, whatever category it is called. I like the new styles - maybe some of it we can call new, some pop, some dance, whatever. I like to translate this vibe and bring it into the jazz context, the context of an acoustic band."

The quintet played a few dates on a short tour in the Czech Republic last year before recording the CD. Its performances this year are limited, as well.

"We will only have three concerts - two at Jazz Dock, and one in Moravia," Honzák says. "We can hardly play more often. It's too expensive to get the musicians together."

Honzák can be seen more regularly in Prague with his quartet Face of the Bass. He also works with the drum & bass project Sato San-To and is a member of the pop-folk Eben Brothers band.

Born in 1959 in Litoměřice, Honzák has been head of the Jazz Department at the Jaroslav Jezek Conservatory in Prague since the department was founded in 2003. He gives lessons in bass-playing and improvisation, and from that vantage point, has been glad to see the rise of a healthy, younger jazz scene locally.

"I can see a huge improvement in the last 10 years - even five years," he says. "It is a really different scene from how it was 20 years ago."

Jazz runs in Honzák's blood. His father is the leader of the František Honzák Band, formerly known as the Frantíšek Honzák Orchestra. "I started with jazz quite late - I was 14 when I started to play bass," Honzák says. "It was my father's idea. He used to have a big band, a swing band. Then he switched to a smaller group, a dance band with a small wind instrument section. He always had problems finding good bass players, so he suggested that I learn bass. And I just kept playing it."

While Honzák has become a star in his own right, in some parts of the country, he will always take a back seat to his father, who is still active at the age of 86.

"Two years ago, he agreed with his friends to get back together, and they celebrated the 50th anniversary of the band at the Cultural House in Litoměřice," Honzák says. "They had 750 people come to seem them. I was also a member of this reunion band. But when I play there in the same hall [without my father], 40 people will come to see me."

Tony Ozuna can be reached at
features@praguepost.com