BRIAN CHARETTE – SOULMATES (BRIAN CHARETTE, LIBOR ŠMOLDAS, TOMÁŠ HOBZEK) (US/CZ)

Brian Charette – Hammond organ
Libor Smoldas – guitar
Tomas Hobzek –  drums

tickets: 30 pln

BRIAN CHARETTE

New York City organist/pianist Brian Charette has established himself as a leading voice in modern jazz. Charette is a Grammy-nominated, Hammond-endorsed artist who was the winner of the 2014 Downbeat Critics’ Poll in the “Rising Star: Organ” category and has climbed to 4th place in The 2015 Critic’s Poll in the main Organ category. This year Brian also won The Hot House Magazine Fan’s Decision Jazz Award for Best Organist in New York and had three releases on the Jazz Week Top 20.

Charette was born in Meriden, Connecticut in 1972, and was introduced to music by his mother, Catherine. By the age of 17, he was playing with jazz luminaries Lou Donaldson and Houston Person. After graduating on the Dean’s List from UConn in 1994 with a BA in Classical Piano Performance, Charette began touring Europe and was drawn to the culture and scene of Prague, Czech Republic, where he now works often.

Besides being a critically acclaimed composer and bandleader, Brian has worked with notable artists such as Joni Mitchell, Chaka Khan, Paul Simon, Cyndi Lauper, and many more. Charette is also an active author and educator, writing for Keyboard magazine, New York City Jazz Record, DownBeat, and the Czech magazine Muzikus. Brian teaches masterclasses all over the world and is on the faculty of the Czech Summer Jazz Workshop at Jesek Conservatory in Prague. His first book, 101 Hammond B3 Tips, was just released in fall 2014 through publisher Hal Leonard, and he has a popular instructional video on the website, mymusicmasterclass.com. Outside of music, Charette is passionate about chess and White Crane kung fu, in which he holds a black sash.

http://www.briancharette.com/

LIBOR SMOLDAS

Libor Šmoldas (1982) is a Prague based jazz guitarist and composer. Besides top Czech and European musicians he has worked and recorded with international stars such as George Mraz, Jeff Ballard, Sam Yahel, Bobby Watson, Adam Nussbaum, Brian Charette, Jay Anderson, Stephen Keogh and more.

Libor has released four albums as a leader (Dreamtime 2013, Intuition 2013,18 Days 2000 Miles 2012, In New York on time 2010, Live at Jazz Dock 2010, On the playground 2007). He has worked and recorded on numerous occaisions as a sideman for Skip Wilkins, Bob Montgomery, Ingrid James, Bill Warfield, Yvonne Sanchez, Brian Fentress, Zeuritia, Robert Balzar, Jan Korinek. While playing with Ondrej Pivec and his Organic Quartet, the band was awarded with Andel award for best jazz recording of the year.

In spite of his being awarded a scholarship to Berklee School of Music in 2005, he decided to stay in the Czech republic and studied Advanced Secondary Studies department of the Jezek Conservatory of Jazz and Music and Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. He toured the USA with his czech quartet in 2011 and made appereances in New York (Smalls), Washington DC, Richmond, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and more. While in the United States, Libor recorded with Adam Nussbaum, Jay Anderson, George Mraz, Jeff Ballard, Sam Yahel and studied with Peter Bernstein, Lage Lund, Steve Cardenas and Paul Bollenback.

Libor’s concert activities include four continents and cities like New York, Washington, Sydney, Brisbane, Beijing, Istambul, Milan and London. As an educator Libor visited Amerika, Australia, Germany, England, Greece and Poland.

Libor’s quartet plays mostly original music and is very well established in Czech jazz clubs as well as internationally. It often collaborates with legendary saxofonist Bobby Watson. They have toured together and recorded an album entitled Intuition.

In 2014 Libor lived in Australia for three months, teaching and performing Sydney, Brisbane, Wollongong, Mount Gambier, Port Macquarie, Cairns, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich and more.

In spite of his young age is Libor widely considered to be one of the best jazz musicians in the country and a leading representative of his generation.

http://www.liborsmoldas.cz/en/

TOMAS HOBZEK

Tomáš Hobzek (born 1980) began drumming sessions at Pilsen Conservatory. During his studies he became part of the J.K. Tyl’s theater orchestra, where he gained experience through playing classical music, which he did also through playing with various student bands. In 1999 he attended Prague Jazz Workshops and studied under Pavel Zbořil, Martin Šulc and Robert Balcar. Tomáš was also at the birth of “Adam’s Apple Quintet”, and started to give guest performances in Milan Svoboda’s bands. As a member of J.K.

Tyl’s theater orchestra he performed in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and also he took part of big opera tour in Japan 2003.

Together with saxophonist Helena Marková, Tomáš established a band named Work in Progress, where he demonstrated his composing abilities.

In 2004 he started attending Prague Jazz College of Jaroslav Ježek (Jazz major), lead by Jaromír Honzák. Tomáš soon started to penetrate Prague jazz scene, as he became part of David Dorůžka Trio, Ondřej Pivec Organic Quartet, Vojtěch Procházka Trio, two bands of Roman Pokorný, Christian Rover Trio, Points quartet and lately Libor Smoldas Quartet. Tomáš also appears in countless other performances as a special guest. In the summer of 2006, Tomáš and guitarist Christian Rover accompanied organ player Rhoda Scott at Homburg Festival in Germany.

As a drummer of David Dorůžka Trio Tomas took part in the International Getxo Jazz Festival in 2005. In the same year he won “Best Band” Award with Organic Quartet at Philips International Jazz Festival. A year after that he managed to get the Czech Musical Academy Award (Anděl) in the category Jazz and Blues with the CD Don’t Get Ideas recorded with Ondřej Pivec Organic Quartet.

Tomáš performed in many International Jazz festivals with Organic Quartet, such as Cheltenham, Sibiu, Kishinev, Prague Spring, Jazz Fest Brno, Peking, Athens, or Greece (May 2008), where the band was the sole representative of the Czech musical scene. In July of 2008 Organic Quartet performed in Getxo jazz festival, Spain, where the band earned an impressive audience’s prize as the Best Band (over 17.000 visitors and jazz fans were present during the festival).

In 2007 Tomáš headed to New York, where he took private lessons with drummer Kendrick Scott (Terence Blanchard band). There, Tomáš recorded together with the hammond-organist Ondřej Pivec a CD Overseason – in cooperation with guitarist Jake Langley and saxophonist Joel Frahm. He also met pianist Dan Tepfer, who plays on Tomas’s first own album “Stick It Out” (2009).

Since 2008, Tomáš has also his own band, called Tomáš Hobzek Quartet (Tomáš Liška – doublebass, Marcel Bárta – sax, Vítek Křišťan – piano). The band has already performed in many places around Czech republic and Germany. In the spring 2009, czech label Animal music released their frst cd called “Stick It Out”, that gained many very positive reviews, such as “energetic, brilliantly served modern jazz” or “possible candidate for the jazz album of the year” . Tomas recorded this album with two guests, New York based pianist Dan Tepfer and holland saxophonist Cyrille Oswald.

In the summer 2009 the band Points was awarded a first prize in Getxo jazz competition (Spain) and later this band took part in spanish festivals in Ibiza, Bilbao and Elorio.

They also earned the second prize in jazz contest in Hoeilaart (Belgium).

http://www.tomashobzek.com/