Jaroslav Ježek
Encyclopedia
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
, author of jazz, classical, incidental and film music.
Life
Ježek was born in the PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
quarter of Žižkov
Žižkov
Žižkov is a cadastral district of Prague, Czech Republic. Most of Žižkov lies in the municipal and administrative district of Prague 3, except for very small parts which are in Prague 8 and Prague 10. Prior to 1922, Žižkov was an independent city....
to the family of a tailor. He was almost blind from a young age. He studied composition at the Prague Conservatory
Prague Conservatory
Prague Conservatory, sometimes also Prague Conservatoire, in Czech Pražská konzervatoř, is a Czech secondary school in Prague dedicated to teaching the arts of music and theater acting.- Instruction :...
as a pupil of Karel Boleslav Jirák
Karel Boleslav Jirák
Karel Boleslav Jirák was a Czechoslovak composer and conductor....
(1924–1927), at the master school of composition with Josef Suk
Josef Suk (composer)
Josef Suk was a Czech composer and violinist.- Life :Suk was born in Křečovice. He studied at Prague Conservatory from 1885 to 1892, where he was a pupil of Antonín Dvořák and Antonín Bennewitz. In 1898, he married Dvořák's eldest daughter, Otilie Dvořáková , affectionately known as Otilka...
(1927–1930), and shortly also with Alois Hába
Alois Hába
Alois Hába was a Czech composer, musical theorist and teacher. He is primarily known for his microtonal compositions, especially using the quarter tone scale, though he used others such as sixth-tones and twelfth-tones....
(1927–1928). Ježek met the playwrights/comedians Jan Werich
Jan Werich
Jan Werich was a Czech actor, playwright and writer.-Life:Between 1916 to 1924 he attended "reálné gymnasium" in Křemencová Street in Prague...
and Jiří Voskovec
Jirí Voskovec
Jiří Voskovec was a Czech-American actor, playwright, dramatist, director, translator, and poet...
(aka George Voskovec), leaders of the Osvobozené divadlo
Osvobozené divadlo
Osvobozené divadlo was a Prague avant-garde theatre scene founded as the theatre section of an association of Czech avant-garde artists Devětsil in 1926. The theatre's beginnings were strongly influenced by Dadaism and Futurism, later by Poetism...
(Prague Liberated Theatre) in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, and took up the post of main composer and conductor for the theatre. During the next decade (from 1928 to 1939), he composed incidental music, songs, dances, and ballets for the comic and satirical plays of Voskovec and Werich. In 1934 he became a member of Czech Group of Surrealists. Forced to leave Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
following the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
occupation, Ježek, Voskovec and Werich went into exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He worked as a piano teacher and choirmaster there, and continued to work with Voskovec and Werich. In 1942, the long-ill Ježek died of chronic kidney disease in New York. On December 29, 1941, two days before his death, Ježek married Frances Bečáková.
He collaborated with many avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
artists of pre-war Czechoslovakia, such as Vítězslav Nezval
Vítezslav Nezval
Vítězslav Nezval was one of the most prolific avant-garde Czech writers in the first half of the twentieth century and a co-founder of the Surrealist movement in Czechoslovakia....
and E. F. Burian
Emil František Burian
Emil František Burian was a Czech poet, journalist, singer, actor, musician, composer, dramatic adviser, playwright and director. He was also active in Communist Party of Czechoslovakia politics.- Life :...
.
Music
His musical output is commonly divided into two parts. The first part of his work consists of chamber, piano and concertant compositions, created first under the influence of Stravinsky, of the Parisian Les SixLes Six
Les six is a name, inspired by The Five, given in 1920 by critic Henri Collet in an article titled "" to a group of six composers working in Montparnasse whose music is often seen as a reaction against the musical style of Richard Wagner and impressionist music.-Members:Formally, the Groupe des...
and of Arnold Schönberg. Later he found his own, specific and modern expression. He also became a popular jazz composer in pre-war Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. He composed songs and dances for the revue plays of the Prague Free Theatre (The Ass and the Shadow, Caesar, The Headsman and the Fool e.g.) and also for the films of Voskovec and Werich (The Powder and the Gasoline, The World Belongs to Us, Stand and Deliver! e.g.). His innovative melodies are well-known in the Czech Republic to this day. Ježek was also evidently fascinated by American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
. Between 1929 and 1936, possibly earlier, he organized and conducted an orchestra featuring his original jazz compositions and arrangements. Billed variously as "Ježek's Jazz" and "Ježkův swingband" they recorded for the Czech Ultraphon label, making some of the most original music in Europe. A few of these sides deserve special mention. "Bugatti Step" (1930; Ultraphone A10166) is an up-tempo number for piano and jazz orchestra, enjoying enduring popularity as a hot jazz piano solo. "Teď ještě ne" (Not Yet) (1931; Ultraphon A10217) is rousing dance music in the Jean Goldkette
Jean Goldkette
John Jean Goldkette was a jazz pianist and bandleader born in Patras, Greece. Goldkette spent his childhood in Greece and Russia, and emigrated to the United States in 1911....
or Coon-Sanders' Nighthawks style. "Rubbish Heap Blues" (1937; Ultraphon A11421) shows that Ježek not only listened to Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
's records, but was keeping up with Duke's very latest work. "Rubbish Heap" features a Johnny Hodges
Johnny Hodges
John Cornelius "Johnny" Hodges was an American alto saxophonist, best known for his solo work with Duke Ellington's big band. He played lead alto in the saxophone section for many years, except the period between 1932–1946 when Otto Hardwick generally played first chair...
-like alto sax and a Cootie Williams
Cootie Williams
Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter.-Biography:...
-like growl trumpet, plus a three-trombone section to complement the three trumpets. Ježek's composition titled simply "Polonaisa" (1931; Ultraphon A10355) is a traditional Polonaise
Polonaise
The polonaise is a slow dance of Polish origin, in 3/4 time. Its name is French for "Polish."The polonaise had a rhythm quite close to that of the Swedish semiquaver or sixteenth-note polska, and the two dances have a common origin....
clothed in modern instrumentation, harmony and textures. It is as if Chopin and Gershwin had collaborated, the Polish dance rhythms mingling easily with hot syncopation
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
. Ježek also turned the boys loose in records of his arrangements of well-known hot jazz standards, such as "Tiger Rag," "Dinah" and "Chinatown, My Chinatown." These recordings, very few of which could have survived the Nazi occupation and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, are almost completely unknown, at least in the U.S.A.
A seven-volume CD retrospective of Voskovec and Werich's work for the Liberated Theater (1929–1938), containing the items mentioned above and dozens of others, was issued by the Czech Supraphon label in 1994 (and reissued in 2007).
Selected works
Orchestral- Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1927)
- Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra (1930)
- Concert for Violin and Orchestra (1930)
- Symphonic Poem (1936)
Chamber
- Serenade for Wind Quartet (1929)
- Wind Quintet (1931)
- String Quartet No. 1. (1932)
- Sonata for Violin and Piano (1933)
- Duo for 2 Violins (1934)
- String Quartet No. 2. (1941)
Piano
- Suite for Quarter-tone Piano (1927)
- Sonatina (1928)
- Petite Suite (1928)
- Capriccio (1932)
- Etuda (1933)
- Bagatelles (1933)
- Rhapsodie (1938)
- Toccata (1939)
- Grande valse brillante (1939)
- Sonata (1941)