Class acts in the town squares

Ask Bohemia Jazz Fest president and founder Rudy Linka what he's doing to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his annual jazz tour of the Czech Republic, and he laughs and says, "I'm celebrating every year! When we got to the third year, I thought that was pretty amazing."

It's no surprise that huge crowds have turned out on town squares throughout the country for free jazz concerts every summer since 2005. What's amazing is the caliber of the performers Linka has been able to recruit for Jazz Fest: Bill Frisell, Chris Potter, Dave Holland, John Scofield, Joshua Redman, Ralph Towner and Victor Wooten, to name a few. And this year is no different, with a seven-city tour featuring headliners like Stanley Clarke, Larry Carlton, Roy Hargrove and the Yellowjackets.

But Linka is not one to sit on his accomplishments, so he's expanding the parameters of the festival this year. It will play in a new city - Brno, July 22. It will reach into Spain for the first time with the Marina Albero and Alba Carmona Quintet, a jazz flamenco group. And it features a tasty mix of local stars and lesser-known foreign acts that hold the potential for risk and surprises.

"One of my favorites is Hakon Kornstad, a saxophone player from Norway," Linka says. "His sound is amazing - it's got rhythm, melody and harmony, with elements of Norwegian mysticism. As soon as you hear it, you think, 'fjords.' Are 20,000 people on Old Town Square going to listen to one guy playing a saxophone? I don't know. But for me, he's that good."

Kornstad will be playing on the second night of the two Prague shows (July 13 and 14), along with Danish pianist Lars Fiil and his quartet, red-hot German/Afghan vocalist Simin Tander and the aforementioned Albero and Carmona group from Barcelona. On the opening night, local jazz luminary Milan Svoboda conducts his big band, followed by Austrian trombonist Paul Zauner leading a brass septet. Then superstar bassist Stanley Clarke takes the stage, with his trio and young Japanese piano phenom Hiromi.

From Prague, the tour wends its way through Domažlice, Plzeň, Tábor and Brno, where the Yellowjackets are the headline band. After a stop in Prachatice, it ends with two nights in České Budějovice (July 24 and 25), with the Larry Carlton Trio headlining the first night and Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Roy Hargrove capping the second night after receiving this year's Bohemia Jazz Fest Award.

Any mention of České Budějovice can't help but bring to mind last year's festival, which ended on a down note in that city when a drunken fan threw a wine bottle and nailed blues guitarist Robben Ford. Fortunately, Ford's guitar took the brunt of the blow, and he was good-natured enough to joke afterward that Bohemia Jazz Fest is so great it should be "bottled and sold." But Linka thought a lot about the incident over the past year.

"We talked about different ideas to prevent it from happening again, like putting up a security fence and screening people, or having plainclothes police mingle in the crowd," he says. "But we really don't want to do that. It's expensive, for one thing, and it's too close to the way things ran under communism."

His recourse, oddly, lies in the fact that the crowd quickly turned on the fan and would have beaten him severely if the police hadn't intervened. "In a democratic society, we're all in this together," Linka says. "So I think the best thing we can do is talk about what happened in the media, and ask people to help us out. If you see somebody who's out of control, tell us before anything happens."

As for what to expect onstage, Linka says, "Even after four years, people should still be surprised by something. That's what jazz is all about - you come, and hear a new band or player do something you've never heard before. I think we're offering a lot of that this year."

He grows reflective for a moment. "Five years is a long time in jazz, especially when you're trying to keep up a high level of quality. This isn't a franchise; we're very selective about where we go and who we invite to play. People should know that when they come to hear a Bohemia Jazz Fest concert, it's really something special."

Frank Kuznik can be reached at
fkuznik@praguepost.com