Vlasta Průchová - a legend of Czech jazz

born 100 years ago

Vlasta Průchová (12 July 1926, Ružomberok – 16 June 2006, Prague) was a Czech jazz singer. From the second half of the 1940s, she gradually built up her leading position in the Czech jazz scene.

In the 1950s, Průchová — as a member of the Karel Krautgartner Orchestra — became one of the most successful participants of the Czechoslovak song competition Hledáme písničku pro všední den (In Search of a Song for the Weekday).^[2] In 1952, she was voted the best Czech jazz woman singer in the poll of the samizdat Boptime. At the beginning of the 1960s, Průchová continued her concert career together with her husband, the cardiologist and musician Jan Hammer Sr.

In 1968, during the dramatic events of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, the whole family moved to the United States. Jan Hammer Sr. received a one-year research fellowship in Washington, D.C., and Jan Hammer Jr. began to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Their stay in the USA was entirely legal but the return to the Czechoslovakia brought them considerable problems.^[4] Jan Hammer Jr. remained in the United States, but his father's career in medicine was stopped. 

Průchová was affected by communist state too. Although she was allowed to perform in the Prague clubs, she was prevented from making new recordings for more than twenty years.^[3] She was forced to find a new band for her performances at clubs and regional jazz festivals.

(from Wikipedia)

For Vlasta, however, her son's emigration meant a harsh punishment. The communist regime stopped letting her into the studio. She could give concerts, but not record. She did not release a single album until the 1990s. In the meantime, she lost her husband — MUDr. Hammer died in 1989. Her son returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time in ten years, except for his funeral.

  Recordind from 1958 - Docela všení obyčerjný den  = Pretty much an ordinary day

Průchová was one of the pioneers of the Czech jazz singing. Her musical style encompasses various genres from jazz standards and swing to bebop.

Her son Jan Hammer (* April 17, 1948 Prague) is a Czech-American composer and multi-instrumentalist (pianist, synthesizer player, guitarist, drummer, etc.). He was a member of the jazz-rock formation Mahavishnu Orchestra and has recorded both a large number of solo albums and titles as part of occasional lineups or with his own group, in which he moves from jazz to jazz-rock and rock to pop music. Hammer has won several Grammy Awards. He composed the music for the series Miami Vice.

 In the beginning there was the blues

Vlasta Průchová was a pioneer. The singer who brought jazz to Czech households. She sang with the young Karel Gott, welcomed jazz legends to her home, and her son became a world music icon. Yet her own life often resembled heavy blues.

 After the war, Prague transformed into a city where jazz sounded from clubs, cafes, and student halls. And where jazz was played, there were Vlasta and Jan Hammer. Their home became a place where music was not only played, but lived. Hammer, a doctor and pioneer of Czech swing, managed to combine medicine with music by welcoming musicians to his home after evening concerts. Jam sessions at the Hammers became a household name — and one of the visitors was Louis Armstrong.

   Vlasta with her son Jan Hammer

After the Velvet Revolution Vlasta returned to the Prague jazzclubs.

For Czech jazz fans Vlasta Průchová will be always First Lady of jazz.

Thanks for reading

                                          Margaret

Source: Wikipedia

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