Face of the Bass

Original music composed by the members of the group. Antenna tuned to receive waves from both outer and inner space. An unveiled face......

Bandleader Jaromír Honzák graduated from the Conservatory of Teplice in 1982, and completed additional studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He has performed with virtually all of the major figures of the Czech jazz scene and with many international artists such as Bill Hardman, Phil Wilson, Art Farmer, Victor Lewis, Amina Claudine Myers and Jorge Rossy. He has performed at a number of international festivals including Sea Jazz Helsinki, Ingolstadter Jazztage, Leverkusener Jazztage, the Jazz Jamboree Warsaw, and the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
Jaromír has documented his work as a bandleader, bassist and composer on four recordings. His compositions and recordings have been awarded numerous prizes both in the Czech Republic and abroad. His last two CD's ("A Question to All Your Answers" and "Present Past") were both awarded the Angel prize for the best Czech jazz CD of the year (2007 and 2003). Jaromir's composition "Constant Struggle" from Present Past is featured in The European Real Book (Sher Music).
Jaromír also leads the Czech-Polish group, the Jaromír Honzák Quartet, and is the chairman of the jazz department (VOŠ JAZZ) at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague.

Michal Nejtek was born in 1977. He studied piano and composition at the Conservatory of Teplice (from 1991 to 1997). He performed the Piano Concerto in F by G. Gershwin with The North Czech Philharmonic Teplice at his graduation concert. He continued his compositional studies with Svatopluk Havelka at the Music faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (1998 – 2003), and graduated with the chamber opera Dementia Preacox (the first performance took place at the Marathon of Contemporary Music Festival, Prague 2001).
Between 1998 and 2008 he was teaching music theory, piano improvisation and composition at the Conservatory of Music in Teplice. In 2006 he became a lecturer on jazz history and composition at the Jaroslav Ježek VOŠ JAZZ in Prague.
As a pianist, he was playing in various jazz groups in Prague (Four Roses, Lee Davison), and he is currently a leader of his own postminimalistic-rock band Why not patterns? (together with composer M. Pudlak). Since 1998 he has often performed with the AGON Orchestra, and he has intensively devoted himself to performing both Czech and world contemporary music as a soloist, or as a chamber musician. He is also a member of the Trio PUO (Michal Nejtek - piano, Petr Tichy - double-bass and Tomas Herian - drums) which was established in 2005 as a new musical project of Feng-yün Song (a female singer of Chinese origin living in Prague). Occasionally he writes reviews on CD with contemporary music for music magazine Harmonie.

Marcel Bárta was born in 1974. He has performed in wide musical formations raging from the famous Czech Gustav Brom Big Band, to his own groovy Muff quintet to theatre-meets-free jazz project Nude Ants or to accompanying alternative singers/songwriters Vladimir Vaclavek or Zuzana Dumkova. Apart from that he has performed or recorded with James Moody (USA), Tony Lakatos (Hungary), Andrea Keller (Australia), Rich Perry (USA), Ingrid Jensen (Canada), Vertigo quintet, Tara fuki, NUO, VRM and Kontraband.

Roman Vícha was born in Ostrava in 1979 and represents the third generation of musicians in his family. He began his studies at the age of 13, and began professional training at the Janáèek Conservatory in Ostrava. A recent graduate of Prague's Jaroslav Ježek VOŠ JAZZ, he is already considered to be one of the most talented and versatile drummers on the Czech jazz scene. His energetic, brisk and flexible style covers a broad spectrum of musical styles from groove, jazz, blues, pop, jungle and hip-hop. He divides his busy schedule between several bands of different styles, including Toxique, NUO, Bucinatores, Yvonne Sanchez, Stability, Gumbo as well as Face of the Bass. His work has been documented on CDs by Soil ("In Fields"), NUO ("Dixie and the gang"), Toxique ("Toxique"), Private Earthquake ("Acoustic Session"), Gumbo and Yvonne Sanchez (“Pieces“).