2024-08-22 11:02:30
This year’s edition of the Šumper festival Blues Alive will offer, among other things, a special evening on the occasion of the 80th birthday of jazz singer Jana Koubková. The show will take place between November 14 and 16, the main stars include guitarist and singer Devon Allman, drummer and guitarist Cedric Burnside or American blues singer-songwriter Eric Bibb.
During Jana Koubková’s concert, the guests take turns on the stage. “In addition to her brilliantly played quartet, the birthday girl will also sing with three of her old friends and colleagues with whom she has never performed live – pianist Martin Kratochvíl, guitarist Tony Ackerman and saxophonist Joe Kučera,” said the festival’s dramaturg Ondřej Bezr.
The last time Jana Koubková released the video clip Blues (un)endangered senior woman three years ago, in which she looked back on a difficult period. In addition to the cancellation of concerts caused by the coronavirus pandemic, she faced serious health problems. “The text captures the current state of my mind. Just the year 1944 in itself, plus covid and the impossibility of doing my job for almost a year and a half, which I’m used to. But I’m not going to collapse and that’s probably the main message,” she said at the time.
She added that she feels her time is running out. “When you don’t sing for so long, the vocal cords work worse and so does breathing. And health problems due to age are also associated, but without singing, inventing and acting, I’m simply not me at all,” Koubková said about the song.
Among other things, it looks at the treatment of breast cancer. “And I want to be wonderful, but my back hurts, one breast is missing, the blood vessels are also angry, but the one who is afraid is not allowed in the forest, and I want to go to the forest,” sings Koubková in the song, which was accompanied by an animated video clip by screenwriter and director Luďek Bárta .
Jana Koubková was born in 1944 in Roztoky near Prague. She has been singing since the age of six, starting in choirs and vocal groups. She was interested in jazz since she was fifteen, when she heard Ella Fitzgerald scatting on the radio.
Jana Koubková is one of the most famous Czech jazz singers. | Photo: Blues Alive
Although Koubková trained as an electronic winder and for some time earned her living at ČKD Prague, she has been one of the most famous voices on the local jazz scene for decades. It ranges from swing and blues to mainstream or bebop to Latin music or the last years of songwriting.
She was a member of the vocal groups Linha Singers, Kučerovci, C&K Vocal or the Semafor theater, but in the meantime she also made a living as a window cleaner, clerk, model or television announcer. As a jazz soloist, she established herself in 1975 in Luďko Hulan’s band Jazz Sanatorium. “I almost died of happiness,” she recalled of the first moments in this group, where she began to sing professionally. She didn’t have the “right hoarse voice”, but her irritating mezzo-soprano took it well and remains unmistakable to this day.
Later she performed with Jana Koubková’s Hot Aunts or Horký dech groups. She performed at important shows in the Czech Republic and abroad, wrote several books, and undertook study trips to Africa. In the early 1980s, she founded a festival of jazz, blues and rock singers called Vokalíza. “Vocalíza came about mainly because I wanted to sing in the big Lucerna,” she noted some time ago with typical humor. The event has seen twenty years.
The tall, slender and nervous singer with a striking blond hedgehog on her head went on to teach at the Prague Conservatory for six years. In addition, she composes songs and film scores, publishes, writes feuilletons, columns and poetry, has radio shows and has published several books. In addition to scat and vocal improvisations, it is common for her playful performances that she can create music even by simply snapping her fingers or tapping out a rhythm.
She published her last album, A tak si jdu…, in 2016. After the previous recordings Mýdlové bublena and Smrt standardizm, she once again applied herself as a lyricist. Some time ago, she included some of her texts in the book Poems from Jazz Gums.
Jana Koubková won the Gustav Brom Award last year. | Photo: Blues Alive
She herself admits that her latest recordings are “not much about jazz”, as she says.
“It has to do with how old I am. I’ve been through many genres and styles in my life, and in recent years I’ve been enjoying writing lyrics and realizing them musically,” she explained at the time of the release of her latest album, which features guitarist Roman Hampacher, organist Ondřej Kabrna or drummer Jan Červenka.
The singer previously considered the Prague jazz club U Staré paní as her home stage, where she also worked as a dramaturg for seven years until the change of owners. Later, she occasionally performed in Reduta or on the Jazzboat cruising the Vltava.
She celebrated her 65th birthday with a concert in the packed New Gallery of Prague Castle, where the then president Václav Klaus presented her with a Golden Plaque. In her seventies, a compilation called Jazz? Oh yes! and the book Koubkokvoky.
In 2019, an exhibition titled How Jazz Went with Jana Koubková on posters took place in the YMCA Palace in Prague. “Those posters and photographs breathe the life of jazzmen before 1989, when jazz sometimes did a little better than other genres because it was mostly without lyrics,” the singer noted at the time.
Most recently last year, Jana Koubková won the Gustav Brom Award, awarded to outstanding jazz and swing personalities.
Video: Jana Koubková sings the Blues of (not) endangered senior citizens
Koubková last released the video clip Blues (not) endangered senior woman three years ago, in which she looked back on a difficult period. | Video: Supraphon