Review Text
Earthy blues and soul jazz. The bandleader, saxophonist Radek Zapadlo (Vilém Spilka Quartet, Cotatcha Orchestra, Ondrej Ruml, Matej Benko, etc.) founded the quartet in 2017, inspired by the legendary recordings "Back at the Chicken Shack" and "Midnight Special" by the great "Hammond" player Jimmy Smith. Since then, the quartet has moved towards it's own original music in the aesthetics of those recordings and styles. All members of the band, even the traditionalist Radek Zapadlo, a well-known jazz conservative, forced themselves to write compositions for this band. Therefore we will have a unique opportunity to hear Zapadlo´s future hits Dog´s Blues, Fried Egg or Blues for Magda. Surprisingly early, the band has made it to their debut eponymous album, which was born in pain in the infamous studio Jalovec in Babice nad Svitavou. Radek Zapadlo, playing tenor and alto saxophone in Four in Blue, surrounded himself with equally experienced players so that the band's line up can pay respect to Smith's original recordings - Petr Turecek (a rising jazz star from the Department of Jazz at the JAMU Brno) on drums, Vladan Ronner (Mulligang, Milan Kašuba Trio etc.) on Hammond organ and Vilém Spilka (Vilém Spilka Quartet etc.) on guitar. The band's current repertoire is dominated by originals penned by all band members. You can check out the core of it on this release.
