The musician was born in Písek on September 9, 1944 as Jiří Mráz and in the past accompanied the most important jazz musicians, including Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock and Joe Williams. In 1969, he was hired by Dizzy Gillespie in his quintet in New York, then the Trio of Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. He has also performed in groups of Charlie Mingus, Tommy Flanagan, Stan Getz and other outstanding jazzmen.
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On the occasion of his 65th birthday, in 2009 the then President Václav Klaus presented him with the Golden Plaque of the President of the Republic. He appreciated the personalities who became famous in their field and thus benefited the Czech Republic.
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Mraz, who graduated from the Prague Conservatory, decided to emigrate after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, when at the age of twenty-four he received a scholarship to the famous Berkley School of Music in Boston. He was initially in Germany, then moved to the United States.
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