Calling Down The Thunder
Music is many things, including an agent for transformation. The pop records that foul the charts frequently transform otherwise intelligent people into moronic chanters who are unable to count past four to the floor. There are times when music can transform an entire country; see Estonia's Singing Revolution for further details. It is harder to shoot people who are in close harmony. There are times when music can transform a room, or an audience, or sometimes just one man. And so it is with Karel Růžička - part Man, part Thor.
The first week at school was very hard work but also very, very rewarding. I can not get over the fact that my pupils are digesting their Chemistry goodness in their second language. They are just like English pupils, apart from their grasp of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, which is better than you will find in most English schools. Rewarding as it was I still needed to relax, and it is for this purpose that the Almighty placed jazz clubs upon our scorched earth.
A random finger down the listings of the journalistically terrible Prague Post settled upon the Karel Růžička Trio. Just as with wine I know that anything under £2.99 and with a picture of a Nun on the label will be filth, I know that any jazz group that ends with a numerical descriptor will be good. As a rule of thumb this world's jazz Trios and Quartets give me what I want: eggy-beard-stroking noodle-music. Nice…
To me jazz is a little like Capitalism. If you don't get it then I probably don't want to know you. Come back when you are of correct mind and spirit and wish to stroke your eggy beard to great tunes. While Progressive Rock is the music that I hold the most love for, it is probably jazz that I respect the most. It requires musicians not only to have incredible technical skills but also intuition and feel for the sound that they are creating. The constantly shifting shape and colour have to be perfectly controlled in order to obtain those perfect contrasts. The kicks don't come from chaos and order, they come from the transition between the two. Taking it to the edge and pulling back. Touching home after a venture through foreign lands before setting off again, at twice the pace. Or half. Or five eights.
If this is what I was seeking than I couldn't have chosen better than dropping in on the Karel Růžička Trio. Playing in a converted stone cellar that added a surreal backdrop they did three sets, between nine and midnight, each a mini-concert in its own right. Drums and double bass played their part to good effect but it was Karel's piano that guided and cajoled, summoned and silenced, and forced and restrained. With the perfect touch of a man who truly understands music, rather than one who just plays it, he controlled the unfolding patterns with the easy brilliance of a master craftsman. Some moments shifting through patterns as serene as ripples on a pond, and at others calling down the thunder in a magnificent brain-buggering blast as he pelted the keyboard with high-speed aggression, he always found his mark. Out of a million combinations of different notes he always found the ones that sounded just right.
To someone who loves music, but has very little understanding of how it actually works, improvisation is the very last of the black arts. If Jesus had really wanted to impress he would have ditched the old fish and loaves routine and played some John Coltrane. That would have brought the house down, and probably prevented him being nailed to a plank of wood. John Lennon had a point if only he had chosen a better band to illustrate it with.
I have no idea of the technicalities that mean that Karel Růžička can sit at a piano, take a sip of wine, and summon a storm without breaking into a sweat. I do know that the world is a better place for it.
