James Williams & Emil Viklicky - Together (1982)

In the sphere of jazz the seventies were not marked solely by the enormous invasion of electronics and synthetizer orgies. It is possible that it was just this wave that evoked the opposite tendency emphasizing the noble, natural sound of acoustic instruments. And it is somewhat ironic that the ranks of those engaged in this endeavour comprise musicians who were previously responsible for the emancipation of electric sounds in jazz, including Paul Bley, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. "Nothing can replace the acoustic piano," -says one of the personalities of this album James Williams. "It is the oldest, the most difficult but, from the acoustic aspect, the most consistent of all keyboard instruments. Electric pianos are good for their tonality and timbre, but if I have the choice, I prefer the traditional piano. The popularity of electric instruments is great due to . the fact that so many pianos on which jazz musicians are obliged to play at clubs are, to put it in one word, simply dreadful." This explains why jazz pianists welcome to such an extent an opportunity to give solo recitals in concert halls and the possibilities afforded them in this respect by gramophone studios. During the last decade several dozen recordings of this kind originated and practically no outstanding soloist failed to grab such a chance (let us recall at least Adam Makowicz's Winter Flowers in the Supraphon production). Combinations of pianists of the kind offered by the joint album of Emil Viklicky and James Williams occur less frequently even though we can mention several excellent recordings on which Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan or John Lewis, Jaki Byard and Earl Hines and, in particular the duo formed by Chick Corea and Herbi Hancock, in whose concert Emil Viklicky took part some time ago during his stay in America and which, may have been one of the sources which inspired the production of this record, jointly present their art.

Nevertheless, the main impulse for the origin of the Spolu (Together) album was Emil Viklicky's enchantment with James Williams' playing itself. Emil became acquainted with it only three days after arriving in Boston in the autumn of 1978 at the local Jazz Work-shop club where Williams was engaged with the group of vibraphon-ist Milt Jackson. On graduating from the faculty of music of the university at Memphis, the town where he was born, James Williams worked at Berklee College where, apart from theoretical subjects (harmony), he taught the piano. And it was merely by chance that he did not become the teacher of his later, three years older European partner (he was born in 1951). Just when Emil began to sit on the school benches of the famous Berklee College Williams received an offer from Art Blakey to replace George Cables in the legendary Jazz Messengers, a group which has helped to create the history of modern jazz for nearly thirty years. At the time in question James had just won renown in the jazz sphere, with his first record, Flying Colors, on the Zim label (one of the members of his then recording formation was, by the way, Slide Hampton, who is well-known in Czechoslovakia). Conrad Silvert, critic from the San Francisco Chronicle, referred to it as one of the best gramophone debuts he could remember. And so when Williams set out on his first tour of Europe with the Messengers in September 1978, Viklicky had a year of study in Boston ahead of him. When Williams finally made a flying visit to Prague during his last European tour with Blakey's group in the spring of 1981 in order to make their long-planned record with Viklicky, he already had several albums with the Messengers to his credit (apart from the one which he recorded in Paris one week before his,visit to Prague let us mention at least In My Prime for the Timeless label and the live recording In This Corner for the Concord label) as well as his own LP called Images of Things to Come, published under the label of Jefferson's Californian company Concord Jazz which offered him an exclusive contract as one of the most promising young pianists 'of the present.

The recording made on two master Steinway instruments in the Dvorak Hall of the House of Artists in Prague (as the first jazz record of the Czechoslovak production in general) convincingly demonstrates the qualities of both musicians in the roles of soloists and composers. The.very first notes of Williams' theme For My Nephews evoke an introversjble chamber atmosphere characteristic of the record as a whole and of the concentrated performances of its protagonists. Apart from the individual, really outstanding choruses, which need no recommendation (from the left we hear Viklicky and from the right Williams in the stereophonic recording), the most effective places in the album include those in which their playing mingles in a mutually, inspiring dialogue confirming the well-known truth that jazz is one of the most vital methods of collective artistic communication of the 20th century.

- Источник оцифровки: автор новости (plastinka/nickhome)
- Класс состояния винила: EX+
- Устройство воспроизведения: Электроника ЭП-017С
- Картридж: Audio-Technica AT440MLa
- Предварительный усилитель: Самодельный ламповый v3.1
- АЦП: ESI Julia
- Обработка: ручное удаление щелчков
- Формат записи (Bit/kHz): 32 float/96
- Перед записью винил помыт с помощью Pro-Ject Spin Clean Record Washer MK2 Package