So we went to the newly shiny city of Prague to visit a writer friend who's spending the summer with her director husband in a little wood house in the hills about an hour outside the city. And of course I couldn't pass up the chance to see some of the famous jazz clubs of the city. The dates and the weather ( rainy, rainy) didn't do us any favours, but we did manage to get to one basement club: U Maleho Glena. Where we saw a (mostly) great quintet of young players. I'd like to be able to detail each of them by name, but I've mislaid the program and I was simply deeply unable to make notes on the Czech names as they sped by in the introductions. Special kudos though to the extraordinary bass player who filled up room with his sound... not so special kudo's to the trumpetist who seemed to equate REALLY LOUD with really good: in the tiny cellar he managed to pull a piercing tone out of instrument and went for the 'as loud as possible' high note for each of his solos...
