2024-05-02 09:26:44
After less than two years, the American group Snarky Puppy once again filled the Sono Centrum in Brno. This Wednesday she performed at the local Jazzfest, it was one of the highlights of this year. The musicians celebrated 20 years of activity here and presented their fifth record, Empire Central, for which they won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album.
The band was founded in the Texas city of Denton, where the historically first college jazz department has been operating since 1947. Its graduate is also bassist Michael League, who founded Snarky Puppy as a ten-member group for the purposes of a school project. He gradually built a sought-after, numerous instrumental ensemble from it.
“Individual players and personalities on stage constantly push the songs in new directions, which for me is the main charm of the tour. I like to see the songs grow,” said the band leader. At the festival this year, League already performed in a duo with pianist Bill Laurance, in February at Besední dům. They received a long applause.
The spring festival block will continue next Sunday with a concert by trumpeter Chris Botti in the Janáček Theater. Icelandic singer Laufey was supposed to perform next, but she canceled the concert. The festival will close on Sunday, June 2, with an event called Slavnosti syncop in the Goose on a String Theater, where saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins will be the main star.
The organizers recently announced that the American saxophonist Kamasi Washington, who has worked with hip hop stars Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, will come to Brno in the fall. Tom played on the award-winning album To Pimp a Butterfly. Washington will perform at the Sono Center on November 5. “It personifies the changeability of the jazz scene and the connection with other genres. It proves that if something is not current jazz, it is a dull soundtrack to a coffee on the spa colonnades,” says artistic director of the festival Vilém Spilka.
Kamasi Washington often plays not only at jazz festivals, but also at large multi-genre events such as Primavera Sound in Barcelona, Glastonbury in England or Coachella in America. His music is unclassifiable, alternating brisk improvisations close to funk with intricately composed moments, such as when he used a massive orchestral sound and procedures reminiscent of psychedelic music on the albums The Epic from 2015 or Heaven and Earth from 2018.
At Jazzfest, the saxophonist will present his new album Fearless Movement, which he will release this Friday, featuring rapper André 3000 and 82-year-old funk star George Clinton.
The saxophonist himself describes the record as dance. “But when I say dance, I don’t mean it literally. For me, dance is something that expresses the movement of the human spirit, so it’s actually something similar to music. That’s what the album is all about,” he adds.
Video: Song from Kamasi Washington’s new album
Prologue from Kamasi Washington’s new album Fearless Movement, out this Friday. | Video: Young Turks Recordings