Large turnout on Old Town Square for first night of 2010 Bohemia Jazz Fest

This year’s Bohemia Jazz Fest got underway in Prague on Tuesday night with a concert featuring the great American bass player Stanley Clarke and three other artists. The annual event brings top class jazz musicians to the squares of a number of Czech towns and cities, for free. The man who set it up is New York based Czech musician Rudy Linka; earlier I asked him what was new this year.

Milan Svoboda Big Band on Bohemia Jazz Fest in Prague, photo: CTK

“There are a lot of things which are new. The first one is that we have a new city in our line-up, and that is the capital city of Moravia, Brno. We will be there on July 22. And we are another day in České Budějovice, so the festival takes in seven cities over nine days. That’s the big one in terms of geography.

“Otherwise, we have performers from 14 countries including Japan, the US, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, Austria, Poland...”

Tell us, how was the opening night on Prague’s Old Town Square?

“The opening night was absolutely fantastic. We were so lucky with the weather because it wasn’t as hot as on Monday, which was really brutal. We were so lucky, because the president, Václav Klaus, came and opened the festival for us.

Stanley Clarke

“Stanley Clarke, our biggest star, was absolutely fantastic. We had over 20,000 people on the square and it just couldn’t have been better.”

What do you think will be some of the highlights of the rest of Bohemia Jazz Fest this year?

“We have so many great players this year that there will be many highlights. But probably the best known performers will be Yellow Jackets in Brno. Otherwise, it’ll be Larry Carlton and his trio in České Budějovice, and Roy Hargove, also in České Budějovice, who will receive the Bohemia Jazz award from us.”

You mentioned the heat. It’s very, very hot here these days. How do you think that could impact the success of this year’s festival?

Rudy Linka

“As I said, we were lucky yesterday because it wasn’t as hot. We hope we will be lucky today [Wednesday] as well. We have water on Old Town Square from Veolia, who is our sponsor. That was great, because they brought a big truck of water. And I just hope people will enjoy it, exactly like they enjoy the heat in New York or in Madrid.”

www.bohemiajazzfest.com