Together Again George Mraz & Emil Viklicky

• 1 Dear Lover 02:46
• 2 Poem 06:32
• 3 Theme from 5th Part of Sinfonietta 05:33
• 4 A Bird Flew By 05:20
• 5 U Dunaja, U Prespurka 05:33
• 6 Austerlitz 03:47
• 7 Moon, Sleeping in a Cradle 04:07
• 8 Thank You, Laca 03:58
• 9 Up On a Fir Tree 03:20
• 10 I Saw Grey Pidgeon 05:05
• 11 In Holomóc Town 05:42
• Total Runtime 51:43

Info for Together Again

A little while ago, the British 'Guardian' wrote that ACT was on a mission to sign the best European pianists to its label. Creative virtuosos like Yaron Herman, Leszek Mozdzer and Gwilym Simcock bear witness to the fact that these pianists do not have to come from Scandinavia. And that they don't have to be young is now proven by the Emil Viklicky ACT debut 'Together Again'. The 65 year-old Czech national has perhaps stayed too down-to-earth for us to have discovered him earlier for what he is: the 'patriarch of Czech jazz piano', as the London Evening Standard put it. And 'one of the best contemporary pianists, whose touch, voicing and chords have a lot in common with the grand masters of taste the likes of Tommy Flanagan and Jimmy Rowles,' as the American periodical Jazz Time wrote of him in 2004.

Raised in a musical family in Olmütz, Viklicky first studied mathematics, culminating in an excellent degree, but parallel to that he discovered jazz and practiced so much that he was voted Best Soloist at the Czech Amateur Jazz Festival in 1974. Immediately after, Karel Velebny recruited him for his SHQ Ensemble, which was probably the best-known jazz band in Czechoslovakia. Viklicky won more prizes and ultimately a scholarship to study composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. So it was that he spent five years in the American system: 'I learned everything you need to know there: the fundamentals of composition and arrangement, but also what it takes to succeed as a professional musician,' he recalls.

Back in Prague he reaped the benefit of that: Viklicky was not only the best jazz pianists in the country, he was also one of the most celebrated film music composers, one of the most formative teachers, one of the most important neoclassical composers, and for a time after the fall of Communism the president of the Czech Jazz Society. It was there that he met his former countryman again, who had chosen the other path from the same starting point: the bassist four years his senior, George Mraz. Like Viklicky, Mraz also gained his first professional experience with Karel Velebny.

Before Viklicky he had also studied in Berklee, and then lived a year in Munich. But unlike Viklicky, Mraz did not return to Czechoslovakia after the suppression of the Prague Spring, but instead went to the US to launch his career. He has credits on almost 1,000 records and CDs. There is as good as no big name in jazz that he hasn't made music with. The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Stan Getz, Tommy Flanagan and Richie Beirach (with whom he also recorded three albums for ACT) were his most important regular partners.

'George plays the bass like he invented it. He always plays exactly the note you want to hear,' said pianist Beirach about him once. Just as significant is that Mraz initially learned violin and alto saxophone: probably the reason why he is possibly the best exponents of the bow in jazz. And he has a strong lyrical streak, which is also capable of going on the offensive, and an unmistakable vibrato.

It is no wonder that after ten years with Tommy Flanagan, Mraz ended up with Viklicky just a few years later. They had already met in 1976 at a festival in Yugoslavia. Then, in 1997 they more or less inevitably found their way back to each other, since both of them had the same idea: to transfer the Moravian folk music they had grown up with into jazz. It may surprise some people here, but parallel to the folk music crusade in jazz that started out from Scandinavia to conquer the world, the same occurred in the Czech Republic with 'Moravia' in 2002 and 'Moravian Gems' in 2007 – although brought out on Milestone in the USA, and not reaching a particularly large audience.

But this captivating, imaginative music played by two extraordinary musicians is simply too good to fade into oblivion, thought Siggi Loch. And rightly so, as a track like 'Austerlitz' proves: especially the harmonic alterations are quite without comparison, 'which is due to the modal character of southern Moravian folk music,' as Viklicky explains. And so it is that ballads like 'Dear Lover', 'Javorina', 'Moon and Sleeping In The Cradle' sound like Randy Newman or Ray Charles numbers gone Slavic by means of delicate chromatics, trills and acciaccatura. The European and American classical influence can be heard perfectly, for example on 'In Holomóc Town': after the expressionistic, bowed bass introduction comes a veritable lesson in swinging post-bop.

And in Leoš Janáček's 'Theme From 5th Part Of Sinfonietta', another special feature of this recording can be discovered. Originally, Viklicky had arranged his old and new compositions for a trio, just as he had for the earlier recordings. But while practicing alone with George Mraz in Munich, the two noticed that it sounded good without a drummer too. More than that: when listening to 'Together Again' played by a duet, it is difficult to imagine how Viklicky's inimitable playing style, with legato and staccato, could be presented better.

A new Czech way of jazz, fresh ideas on traditional foundations and no least of all two of the most remarkable voices of jazz can be discovered on 'Together Again'. Better late than never.

George Mraz, bass
Emil Viklický, piano

Recorded at Realistic Sound Studio by Florian Oestreicher, January 16 & 17, 2013
Mixed and mastered by Klaus Scheuermann
Produced by Siggi Loch

George Mraz
A native of the Czech Republic, George Mraz was born in 1944. He began his musical studies on violin at age seven and started playing jazz in high school on alto saxophone. He attended the Prague Conservatory in 1961 studying bass violin and graduating in 1966. It is likely that his early exposure to these melodic instruments contributed to his mature lyric gifts as a bassist, an instrument he came to rather late in the game. "I was playing some weekend big band jobs," Mraz recalls, "and this bass player wasn't very good. Either that or he was a genius," he laughs, because he seemed to always play the wrong notes. Every now and then you'd think he must play some of the right notes, just by accident. But, no. So I picked up the bass on a break and tried to find the notes. I thought, 'It's not that difficult.' So I got a bass and began playing a little bit. Next thing I knew, I was in the Prague Conservatory."

While studying at the Prague Conservatory Mraz was deeply moved by the Voice Of America radio broadcasts of Willis Conover, who was his connection to a vast new world of possibilities across the ocean. "The first jazz I ever heard was actually Louis Armstrong when I was about twelve years old. They had an hour of his music on one Sunday in between all these light operettas and stuff they played on the radio in the Czech republic (then Czechoslovakia). Then the strange voice of Satchmo singing was quite a shock. 'How can he get away with a voice like that?' I thought. But by the time the hour was over I decided I liked it better than anything I heard that day, so I started looking into jazz”.

"The Voice Of America came on midnight for an hour or so, and my listening equipment wasn't so great, and it was hard to make out the bass. So I was listening to all the instruments, and how it all worked together, rather than just focusing on the bass. I've really been influenced by everything I've heard, but of course I paid special attention to Ray Brown, Scott LaFaro, Paul Chambers, and Ron Carter." Mraz just naturally gravitated towards the music, and became a seasoned veteran of the clubs where he could perform the music that consumed his imagination almost every night. "By some miracle I finished with school, and I began working in Munich with people like Benny Bailey and Mal Waldron. Meanwhile, I'd received a scholarship to Berklee, and when the Soviet tanks entered Prague, it seemed like the ideal time to use it."

During that time he was performing with the top jazz groups in Prague. After finishing his studies George went to Munich and played clubs and concerts throughout Germany and Middle Europe with Benny Bailey, Carmel Jones, Leo Wright, Mal Waldron, Hampton Hawes, Jan Hammer and others.

In 1968 George Mraz came to Boston on a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music and played at Lennie's on the Turnpike and the Jazz Workshop with such artists as Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Joe Williams and Carmen McRae.

In the winter of 1969 George got a call from Dizzy Gillespie to join his group in New York. After a few weeks with Dizzy, George went on the road with Oscar Peterson for about two years. After that he worked with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra for the next six years. In the late seventies George worked with Stan Getz, New York Jazz Quartet, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie and for over ten years with Tommy Flanagan.

George Mraz has a profound gift for the acoustic bass. And while this musician's musician has been a stalwart presence on the modern jazz scene practically from the moment he first landed on these shores from his native Czechoslovakia, in the eyes of the general public his work is still somewhat undervalued. Perhaps because the self-effacing qualities he brings to the bandstand mirror the quiet character of the man stage left-onstage or off, he eschews the spotlight.

With his customary selflessness, Mraz allows as how he never demurred from approaching projects as a leader. "I always wanted to do some kind of projects on my own," Mraz insists, "I just never got around to it." And given the who's who of jazz masters who've made him their first call bassist for three decades (including the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae, Clark Terry, Stan Getz, Slide Hampton, Elvin Jones, Joe Henderson, and Joe Lovano among many others), that's hardly surprising. "After I left Tommy Flanagan in 1992 I had a lot more time to do things," George smiles, adding that "I wouldn't mind doing a few more."

After leaving Flanagan, George went on to work with Joe Henderson, Hank Jones, Grand Slam (Jim Hall, Joe Lovano, Lewis Nash), DIM (Directions In Music with Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, Roy Hargrove), Mc Coy Tyner, Joe Lovano and Hank Jones Quartet, Manhattan Trinity.

He also has lead his own quartet with pianist Richie Beirach, drummer Billy Hart, and the lyrically riveting tenor man Rich Perry. (The quartet may be heard on Mraz's Milestone debut Jazz; Beirach and Hart are on the trio date My Foolish Heart, and Perry on Bottom Lines, the 1997 Mraz session featuring favorite works by fellow bassists Jaco Pastorius, Ron Carter, Marcus Miller, Charles Mingus, Buster Williams, and Steve Swallow, plus George himself.)

"George always plays the exact right note you want to hear," says Beirach, "and he plays the bass as though he invented it." But Mraz does so without drawing attention to himself, and while he is hardly an invisible presence, his sense of what's appropriate is so sure, he can make himself positively translucent. "Even when he's doing nothing more than walking four to the bar, his choice of notes is so perfect, it's like he's telling a little story in back of the soloist," enthuses his producer Todd Barkan.

George Mraz has recorded with Oscar Peterson, Tommy Flanagan, Roland Hanna, Hank Jones, Charles Mingus, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, NYJQ, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Toshiko Akioshi, Kenny Drew, Barry Harris, Tete Montoliu, Jimmy Rowles, Larry Willis, Richie Beirach, McCoy Tyner, Adam Makowicz, Jimmy Smith, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Pepper Adams, Art Pepper, Warne Marshe, Phil Woods, Grover Washington Jr., Archie Shepp, Dave Leibman, Joe Lovano, Jim Hall, John Abercrombie, Kenny Burrell, Larry Coryell, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Jon Faddis, Jimmy Knepper, Bob Brookmeyer, Jon Hendricks, Carmen McRae, Helen Merrill, Elvin Jones and many others.

His albums as a leader include: "Catching Up" on ALFA Records Jazz", "My Foolish Heart", "Bottom Lines”, "Duke’s Place” and "Morava”, all on Milestone Records and ”Moravian Gems” and ”Unison” on Cube-Metier. Other releases incude George MRAZ QUARTET “Jazz at Prague Castle” on Multisonic (2012) and the soon to be released George Mraz and David Hazeltine CD “Your Story”on Cube-Metier.

Emil Viklický
Emil started to play piano in quite early age. His grandfather Victor Wiklitzky had brought from Vienna concert grand piano “Hoffbauer” as a wedding gift for his musically gifted bride. Emil was born in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), where in 1971 he graduated from Palacky University with a degree in mathematics. While a student he devoted much time to playing jazz piano. In 1974, he was awarded the prize for best soloist at the Czechoslovak Amateur Jazz Festival, and that same year he joined Karel Velebny's SHQ ensemble. In 1976, he was a prizewinner at the jazz improvisation competition in Lyon, and his composition “Green Satin” (Zeleny saten) earned him first prize in the music conservatory competition in Monaco, where in 1985 his “Cacharel” won second prize in the same competition.

In 1977 Emil was awarded a 4 year's scholarship to study composition and arrangement with Herb Pomeroy at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He then continued his composition studies with Jarmo Sermila, George Crumb and Vaclav Kucera. Since his return to Prague he has been directing his own ensembles (primarily quartets and quintets), composing and arranging music and - since the death of Karel Velebny - working as director of the Summer Jazz Workshops in Frydlant. He has also lectured at a similar workshop event in Glamorgan, Wales. Between 1991 and 1995 Viklicky was President of the Czech Jazz Society, and since 1994 he has worked with the Ad lib Moravia ensemble, whose performances combine elements of Moravian folk music, modern jazz and contemporary serious music. In 1996 the ALM ensemble undertook a highly successful concert tour of Mexico and the United States.

As a pianist, Emil often performs in international ensembles alongside musicians from the U.S. and other European countries. Back in 1983-89 Emil worked with the Lou Blackburn International Quartet, the Benny Bailey Quintet, and American multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson. He has made frequent appearances in Finland (with the Finnczech Quartet and in particular with Jarmo Sermila) and Norway (with the Czech-Norwegian Big Band and Harald Gundhus) and has performed in the USA, Japan, Mexico, Israel, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands (at the North Sea Festival) and elsewhere. The editor of Rolling Stone Jan Wenner wrote of Emil that “It was a delightful surprise to see such first-class, top-of-the-line jazz in Prague.”

Emil has become noted for his unique synthesis of the melodicism and tonalities of Moravian folk song with modern jazz. As English critic Euan Dixon wrote in 2005 “ Emil Viklicky is one of those European jazz pianists who successfully incorporated elements of his indigenous folk culture into jazz”.

As composer Viklicky has attracted attention abroad primarily for having created a synthesis of the expressive elements of modern jazz with the melodicism and tonalities of Moravian folk song that is distinctly individual in contemporary jazz. Besides this, however, he also composes 'straight-ahead' modern jazz as well as chamber and orchestral works that utilize certain elements of the New Music, and at times his music requires a combination of classical and jazz performers.

Emil also composes incidental and film music and has produced scores for several full-length feature films and television series. Throughout the 1990s he has devoted an increasing amount of time to the composition of contemporary classical music for a great variety of instrumental combinations ranging from small chamber ensembles and electronic instruments to symphony orchestras and choruses. Viklicky's work has gained him quite a number of prestigious awards. These include second prize in the 1985 Monaco jazz composition competition (for "Cacharel"), the 1991 Film and Television Association prize for music for animated films, second prize at the 1994 Marimolin contemporary music competition in Boston (for "Tristana"), a 1996 Prague award for electroacoustic music (for "Paradise Park"), a 1996 Czech Music Fund prize for use of folk music in art music, and first prize in a 2000 international OPERA composition competition in Prague (for the opera Phaedra).

Booklet for Together Again