Are you happy with the album?
Even bigger than I expected. We got to the stage where we had all the songs recorded, and we thought it was such a varied mix that we didn’t know if we could put them together on an album so that it would have a head and a heel.
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In the end, I used my dramaturgical creativity, arranged the songs and listened to them with producer Honza Steinsdörfer in my car. When the album finished, Honza looked at me and said that it was a really good record.
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You call it popswing. Why?
I use this label to attract mainstream listeners as well. I tell them by not having to be afraid to listen to the record. From my point of view, it is a swing step into the twenty-first century.
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We thought for a long time about the sound of the album. We talked about how we could make modern arrangements with songs, use synthetic sounds or choirs. In the end, however, we decided to preserve the swing magic of the old days to some extent. It is a swing board that is, so to speak, tricky.
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It is your fifth and there are a number of standards on it again. Do you still have something to choose from?
It’s harder for me to decide which songs I don’t choose. There are so many wonderful ones that it is difficult to choose good songs from the so-called great American songbook, British or French works. Whatever you reach for, you won’t make a mistake. At the same time, it was necessary to choose songs that would sound good Czech.
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Jan Smigmator recorded a new record.
Photo: Martin Pekárek
Czech texts are unusual in your case. When did you decide for them?
I have wanted to record an album in Czech for a long time. Now is the right time. Everything changes, so the career of a swing singer can change a bit.
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The album is an illustration of the path I would like to take in the years to come. It has a swing tradition in arrangements, which are very classical, and there are also contemporary songs, with more pop rhythms, jazz chanson or bossanova.
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My own creation is increasingly important to me. I am really proud of the songs we wrote on this album together with the pianist Svatopluk F. Smola.
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Did the lyricists in the Czech versions retain the original content of the standards?
Mostly yes. That’s All lyrics, in Czech Nothing more, nothing less, I wrote myself. It’s a kind of re-poeming of the original. The song from the repertoire of Nina Simone and later Michael Bublý’s Feeling Good, in Czech Something is rolling, was written by Ester Kočičková. She was inspired by the original, but her version is very abstract and everyone can put their own experience and ideas into it.
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She also wrote me a lyrics to a song by the German swinger Roger Cicero Der Anruf, in Czech Calling Mom. It’s about a mother calling her failed son. That was the only sentence I gave her as a guide. A text on the same topic as in the original was created, but it is described in its own words.
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Esther even happened to hit several of my life situations, of which she had no idea. For example, because my partner was named Katka. That’s the name of my wife. Even in the fact that I should call my mother more often.
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Did you know Roger Cicero?
He came from a musical family. His father was the famous supra-genre pianist Eugen Cicero, a jazzman who penetrated the classics. Roger started singing, and in 2007 he even represented Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki, where he sang with the big band Frauen regier’n die Welt. By the way, I sang it under the Czech name Women’s Phenomenon with a text by Václav Kopta.
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It always seemed strange to me when someone sang in German. Not to mention swing. But he used colloquial speech from contemporary life and was great at it. At the time, it inspired me so much that I thought I would like to take this path with us.
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We met a few years ago and talked about possible cooperation. Unfortunately, it did not happen because he died in 2016. I have at least claimed the copyright to record three of his songs.
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The guest of the album is jazzman Ondřej Pivec, who lives in America. How did your collaboration come about?
Thanks covid-19. He was to be on a world tour with Gregory Porter. Instead, he is in Prague and eagerly accepts every musical work he believes in. Originally, we were supposed to record only one song together, Rychlík do Harlemu. To some extent, it’s his story. It’s about a boy from Brno who once dreamed of going to Harlem, where it all lives by jazz and rhythm and blues. He did it.
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The song is a dream of its author, the Brno bluesman Darek Neuman. By inviting Ondra to shoot her, she actually got to the point. Once in the studio, he offered to record parts for Hammond’s organ and other songs. And the big band with Hammondy is a sound I love.
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From left, producer Jan Steinsdörfer, Jan Smigmator and musician Ondřej Pivec.
Photo: archive of artists
What did you learn while working with him?
In addition to recording, we also attended several concerts. Both at our Jazz Picnic in Vyžlovka, which are jazz concerts in our cottage in the garden, and at the United Islands of Prague festival as part of the Prague September project.
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I feel much more confident with him on stage. He is able to accompany him perfectly and has incredible experience from his musical life in America, which he passes on to his teammates with his approach. We’re all a class better at the concert with him.
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Have you ever considered going to America for music?
This idea is born in the head of every jazzman, swinger or bluesman. They know where their music came from, where her cradle is. Everyone probably wants to get there and soak up the atmosphere. It also occurred to me many times. I don’t know if I didn’t leave because I didn’t have the courage to do it, or because I couldn’t leave what I was connected to.
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At a time when I thought about it a lot, we had a difficult time with my parents. I knew it was important to be with them and keep them. I couldn’t do it from a distant foreign country.
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When I started making money in my career, I invested a lot in trips to concerts abroad. I consider it extremely important and inspiring. But I never took the step to leave. But who knows, maybe in a few years I will live elsewhere, in New York, Paris or on the banks of the Adriatic in Piran, Slovenia.
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You were in America in the spring. What makes it attractive to you as a swinger and jazzman?
I feel that in New York, Chicago, Nashville or Memphis, the cities I could visit, there is music every step of the way. You walk down the street and constantly pass someone who plays great. In my opinion, the best band in the world plays in every club, and great music also sounds in stores.
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It never occurred to me that Nashville, the cradle of country music, would be one of the first American cities I would visit. And I had no idea that I would fail country there. I felt like I was the biggest fan in the world. I walked around Nashville Broadway and every club played an amazing band. The next day we went on a tour of the RCA studios, where years ago they recorded Elvis Presley or Johnny Cash.
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Nowhere but in America can you experience it. The music that is in my heart originated there. That’s why I can absorb the greatest inspiration there.
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