Talaqpo + Treetop + Tokdat

Tuesday evening will offer a mini-festival of young Czech musicians who perceive jazz not as strictly limiting in style, but as freedom to express themselves in their own language.

19:00 Talaqpo (CZ)

Lucie Páchová - vocals Milan Jakeš - violin Šimon Marek - violoncello Jan Chalupa - drums

The Talaqpo quartet balances between world music, jazz, and contemporary music. Their last album Totribes alluded to folk and classic music of Indian states Orissa and Tamilnad. Their music is inspired by their travels through west Africa and by encounters with local communities. In the quartet’s approach, however, ethnic music is not something to be imitated. Instead, they draw inspiration from the processes in which local music is created, with the environment as starting point, rather than employing existing rhythms and melodies typical of specific regions. The band’s music is enriched with free improvisation and unique individual contributions of its members, whose diverse backgrounds bring a balanced synergy to the quartet.

20.00 Treetop (CZ/SK)

Vojta Drnek - accordion Richard Šanda - trombone Michal Šelep - double bass

This marriage of accordion, trombone, and double bass was not born from a desperate need to create something novel and shocking. Instead, it is the natural result of cooperation between three people sharing both musical and personal connection who get inspiration from their collaboration. The trio’s all-original repertoire is varied, encompassing influences of jazz, folk and classical music as well as contemporary compositional techniques. “The three of us all perform in projects spanning a wide range of genres, so we try to bring into our band anything that we find exciting in contemporary music, exploring the possibilities of sound allowed by our instrumental combination.”

21.00 Tokdat (CZ)

Ondřej Komárek - double bass Martin Konvička - piano Marek Urbánek - drums Tomáš Mika - guitar / composer

Composer and guitarist Tomáš Mika created the four-member musical body TokDat. His jazz quartet brings raw-sounding uncompromising compositions balancing between minimalism and maximalism. Although their genre is difficult to define, they inevitably emulate musical genres of the author’s other ensembles, namely contemporary classical music, folk, jazz or pop and rock music. The band’s specialty are its elaborate rhythms and links between instrumental parts which, despite their individual austerity, combine into a coherent, intricate unit.