Plástev

This jazz quintet sprang into existence in exactly the same mysterious way as it melted away after 1987. At the beginning was the sound of an electrified bass clarinet which in the hands of Eduard Kuhn sounded differently than in classical music.This player appeared as a guest of the jazz-rock group Jazz Fragment, which brought him together with pianist Aleš Faix. And when the bass clarinet and the piano were joined by the flute, it laid the foundations of the group which began to call itself Plástev. The band finally formed and settled with Eduard Kuhn – bass clarinet and saxophone, Jiří Šilhán – flute, Aleš Faix – piano, Jan Střížovský – contrabass and Ivo Kalvínský – percussion. This way Plástev played in the jazz clubs Parnas and Reduta, shot its TV profile in The Musical Studio M and toured Germany and Italy. Each member at that time also performed with another band which weakened Plástev to the extent that it finally became silent. This continued up to the year 2011 when Aleš Faix invited his former playmates to his birthday party and asked them directly whether they would like to revive the band. It might have been thanks to their elevated mood that they agreed and began to occupy themselves with the resurrection of the band. The reconstruction of the original music required a whole year of practising, but several new pieces for the alto saxophone came into being during that time as well. Plástev recorded them in St. Lawrence's Concert Hall in Lesser Town of Prague with the help of the Steinway piano masterpiece. The album »Light at the Beginning of the Tunnel« is a cross-section of both the original and the new repertoire and Plástev disproves the thesis that »nothing improves with age«. After twenty-five years its members are more musically mature and they play with even greater vigour and enthusiasm than before. To refresh your memory, the album also contains two tracks of the Czech Radio from the 1980s – The East spiced with Indian tabla and the jazz-rock version of the Vervain.