Free at last

While the Czech jazz scene has no shortage of remarkable musicians, there is not a tradition of "free jazz" players here, and particularly, there has never been a hard-blowing giant on the saxophone. The communists can be blamed for this, since their clampdown on musicians in the 1970s Normalization period made it impossible for anyone fond of such harder, more aggressive jazz sounds to record or perform in public.

The annual Free Jazz Festival in Prague therefore has special significance for Czech fans of free jazz. This year's festival brings two headliners on the first night; Helter Skelter, featuring the German duo of Helmut "Joe" Sachse and Ernst Bier, playing covers of The Beatles; and a special trio led by the New York-based master pianist, Mathew Shipp. Headliners on the second night are Veryan Weston and Trevor Watts, veteran avant-garde jazz players from the United Kingdom.

Shipp has been active on the New York City jazz scene for more than 20 years as a soloist, and he is especially known for his key role in the David S. Ware Quartet, alongside bassist William Parker and the formidable saxophonist, David Ware. Shipp also has a habit of making provocative statements, and one of his most succinct is "jazz is like punk. ? It's 'fuck you' music."

Speaking to The Prague Post, Shipp carefully rephrases this sentiment in less explicit terms, saying, "Jazz is essentially an underground music that deals with energies and thought-forms that the mainstream does not deal with, so there is a punk-like quality in the honesty of the gesture of the music," he says.

Shipp claims to have gotten this attitude about jazz from the most legendary players, including Charlie Parker and Sun Ra. "All the greats seem to have had that attitude," he says.

For the fifth annual Free Jazz Fest, Shipp will be joined by two other headliners in their own right: His longtime collaborator Joe Morris on double bass, and a wild-haired, hard-blowing saxophonist from Russia, Sergey Letov. At last year's Free Jazz Fest, Letov performed with the pianist Maral Yakshieva from Turkmenistan, and promptly tried to blow the roof off the venue. This time, playing beside the American maestros Shipp and Morris, he just might pull it off.  

The same night, Helter Skelter promises to please both Beatles and jazz fans alike. Guitarist Sachse has been playing with drummer Ernst Bier since 2002, but as he tells The Prague Post, "The idea of playing Beatles songs came up in the year 2000, while I was interpreting Beatles songs in a special workshop. In fact, I realized certain similarities between the Beatles tracks and a jazz standard I perform as a solo artist," he says.

Helter Skelter keeps the melodies and structures from the major parts of the songs they cover, so everything is recognizable - for the most part. And yet, these arrangements are unmistakably avant-garde jazz.

"It is another kind of change sequence," Sachse admits. "The important thing for me was this: When I heard the Jimi Hendrix version of 'Sgt. Pepper,' it was of course 'Sgt. Pepper,' but it was Jimi Hendrix, too."

Sachse's band isn't just for hardcore jazz heads. Devoted Beatles fans have embraced Helter Skelter as well. "For instance, after one of the last Beatles festivals in [Berlin], our performance was described as the 'highlight of the festival.' All in all, we haven't been beaten up or killed so far," he jokes.

Opening the festival Saturday is the Michal Nejtek-Pavel Hruby duo. On Sunday, the Czech duo of Martin Zbrožek and Jaromír Honzák, and the Mikolaj Trzaska Clarinet Trio from Poland, are opening for Weston and Watts. All told, the Free Jazz Festival promises to come correct once again with the best of liberated jazz.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at
features@praguepost.com