Jun 17, 2025 11:12 AM
Kandace Springs Sings Billie Holiday
When it came time to pose for the cover of her new album, Lady In Satin — a tribute to Billie Holiday’s 1958…
The Denmark-based trio Ibrahim Electric sets a stone-cold groove in the Royal Garden at the historic Prague Castle during this year’s Bohemia Jazz Fest.
(Photo: David Turecky)
John Scofield with Ted Poor on stage in Prachatice, Czech Republic.
(Photo: Ralf Dombrowski)
Danish singer Sinne Eeg receives the Bohemia Jazz Fest Award from Rudy Linka.
(Photo: Anna Linka)The Bohemia Jazz Fest celebrated its 20th anniversary in July with a lineup of world-class performers that included many first-timers and several return engagements by artists who have helped the multi-city event gain recognition as an annual midsummer ritual that draws audiences from both within and beyond the borders of its home country, the Czech Republic. This year’s fest, which took place in outdoor venues July 8 in Prague, July 9 in Pilsen, July 11 in Hluboka nad Vltavou, July 12 in Prachatice and July 14–15 in Brno, included a diverse lineup of free shows by John Scofield’s Long Days Quartet (with John Medeski, Vicente Archer and Ted Poor), the groove-digging Danish trio Ibrahim Electric, vocalist Sinne Eeg’s outstanding group (also from Denmark), Czech pianist Kristina Barta’s quintet, Czech saxophonist Ondrej Stveracek’s quartet, a duo of harmonicist Antonio Serrano and pianist Kaele Jimenez from Spain, XY Quartet from Italy, Norwegian bassist Per Mathisen’s Power Trio, Slovakian vocalist Peter Lipa’s band, Austrian saxophonist Harry Sokal’s Groove Unlimited trio and The Next Movement trio from Switzerland, among others.
DownBeat hitched an hourlong ride from Prague to Pilsen with guitarist and festival founder Rudy Linka, who was born in the Czech Republic and defected to Sweden (where he met and later married his wife, Anna) during the 1980s, while his country was still under Communist rule. The couple moved to the United States, where Linka attended Berklee College of Music on scholarship and eventually made great strides as a performer, recording artist and educator based in New York. During our drive, we talked about everything from Linka’s motivation in returning to his homeland to create a traveling festival promoting jazz in the post-Iron Curtain era, to how the Bohemia Jazz Fest has taken on a life of its own due to the ever-changing circumstances that inevitably come with DIY-type, labor-of-love endeavors. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Ed Enright: One of the distinguishing features of the Bohemia Jazz Fest is that it’s not in one place — it’s always moving from one city within the Czech Republic to another.
Rudy Linka: It gives us this whole thing where you can have the same band and give them two or three gigs in different cities. In my opinion it’s getting harder to play tours day after day. It’s not like it was 20 years ago. So it’s really nice that we can actually bring a band from Denmark like Ibrahim Electric, and they played yesterday and they will play tonight. If it was all on the same stage, that would have been more difficult.
I don’t know any other festival which is literally moving. And I didn’t design it that way. The first year we were in three cities in the Bohemia region, and why? Because we had a partner that is a brewery, and they said, you know, if you are in Prague, we want you to be in our town, too, where the brewery is. So that’s why it happened in Pilsen. Also during our very first year, the U.S. embassy helped us to bring one artist, and they said, “But we don’t want to go down to Prachatice [in the Czech Republic’s southern Bohemia region], it has to be in Prague. And that’s why it was in Prague; it just happened like that. And after that, many more cities in the Czech Republic’s historic Bohemia region got onboard. Every year, when it’s bad whether, we’ll get 60,000 people. And if it’s good weather, we’ll get 100,000 people. That’s a lot of people — that’s not small, especially considering what we play.
Enright: Is that one of the things you talk about when you address the audience from the stage in between band performances?
Linka: Yes, I talk about what will happen in the future of this year’s festival and tell them that they can go there and listen to this same artist or maybe another group. I also say why I like these bands. Yesterday I was talking about our 20 years and how much great music we’ve had, but also some things I remember which were kind of funny. One was that John Scofield was playing in Prague for the first time and it was a huge audience, like 20,000 people. He’s a really good friend of mine, and it was a great concert. So, he steps off the stage, and was sitting in the tent backstage, and someone from my staff comes to me and gives me the envelope with the money, and I just hand the envelope to John. He doesn’t count it, he puts it in his pocket and the next day he flies to the United States. So the next day I go to my staff and say, “Where is the money for tonight’s bands?” And they say that all the money was in the envelope. And at that moment I was like, oh, shit. That’s when I said it’s really good to have good friends. The moment he arrived home, john called me and said, “I’m sitting here and [Scofield’s wife] Susan is counting the money and it’s much more than I should have.” And I said, “Yeah, John, I screwed up.” That’s one of the episodes. The other one was another concert at Prague’s Old Town Square, with a ton of people, and someone comes to me with a little 2-year-old boy, and they said, “This guy is lost, can you take him and ask for his parents?” And he was really cool, totally calm, and I took him on my arm and went to the podium. And he looks at all the people and says, “Wow, so many people!” and peed on himself. And I can feel it and see how it’s soaking into my white shirt. I love that pure excitement, for him to see the audience and pee on himself. Immediately his parents were like, “Oh! There he is!” And I went to buy a new shirt.
Enright: Last night at the Royal Garden of Prague Castle, you presented the Bohemia Jazz Fest Award to Danish vocalist Sinne Eeg, who performed there with her band. Tell me about some of the past winners of the award, which recognizes a distinguished jazz artist for his or her contribution to the art of jazz.
Linka: We’ve done this award 16 times now, and the first was John Scofield, then after that we’ve had Dave Holland, Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove, Roy Haynes, Charles Loyd … all of these super well-known guys. And suddenly there are not many legends left. So, I like these artists who are keeping the tradition alive. Sinne got it just because I like that she’s keeping that jazz tradition going. Her band was fantastic. She was here 12 years ago. A lot of people came through the festival and they are coming back, and I like that.
Enright: How has the festival changed and evolved over its 20 years? What are some of the hardships you’ve had to overcome, as well as some of the big successes you’ve experienced? And, how have audience reactions changed?
Linka: When we started in 2006, Bill Frisell played in Prague’s Old Town Square, and people came all the way from Slovakia, and they just could not believe that this will actually be Bill Frisell playing on the square. It was something so unheard of, because anything which was for free was automatically assumed to be very bad. So, people were really suspicious of what’s happening. And everybody who was working with us was very suspicious that we would pay them. The stage people and drivers all wanted cash in advance. Immediately. So that’s changed — we pay nobody in cash any longer, and nobody doubts us. Before, we had much bigger support from the city and the government, which we don’t have today. And it’s interesting why. At one point when we applied for a grant from the Prague Ministry of Culture, they said they will not support us because we are for free, that we are basically undercutting [other presenters] who are organizing concerts for money. If Charles Lloyd is playing for 15,000 people for free, that means nobody will come when Charles Lloyd comes to play some club for, say, 200 to 350 people. And I say, these concerts are so different from club and theater performances. I see our festival as developing an audience for the [presenters] who charge money for admission. Say I give you free sushi once a year: Does that mean you will never go to a Japanese restaurant the whole rest of the yea rbecause you know that once a year you will get sushi for free? I say, I think that person will probably never go to a sushi restaurant, anyway.
The mission of the festival has changed somewhat. In the beginning, I really wanted to say, we have such beautiful cities, such beautiful historic squares, the architecture is fantastic. I said, how amazing would it be if someone can play who can actually match the beauty of our architecture. It’s beautiful but it’s static, something that will never change, but it will be alive with the music, which is always changing, which is jazz, which is just of this moment. That was the reason of Bohemia Jazz Fest. And suddenly things changed because the festival got famous outside the Czech Republic. We get emails from people from all over, for example from New Zealand, “When is this year’s Bohemia Jazz Fest? We would like to come at the time of the fest.” Now it’s much more than just for local Czech people to go and have a good time, but it really makes the Czech Republic internationally recognized as a cultural place. And that was not my mission. That’s too ambitious, that would never enter my mind.
And what else would never have entered my mind was how divided we all are today. And what’s amazing is that it doesn’t matter what you think and who you vote for and what’s your orientation in politics — people just come to the square and listen to the music, and it’s open air, and they have a good time. And as I’m getting older I’m starting to see that this is the best thing of the festival: It brings people together. Who is playing? It’s people from all over the world. John Scofield from the United States, Sinne Eeg from Denmark. And these people don’t speak any Czech, and the people who are listening have smiles on their faces. And I say this is the power of music, it’s so strong. Somebody said that music starts where the words end. And I really do believe that.
Enright: Are there a lot of divisions within the Czech Republic and other parts of Europe like there are today in America?
Linka: What’s happening in the United States will always happen everywhere else — just a little bit later. People get inspired, and not necessarily in the best ways. So of course it’s everywhere, in Germany, Holland, Czech Republic also. I feel so sad about it. And I’m sitting at home and I think I should be doing more, but I don’t know what. And maybe my thing is the Bohemia Jazz Fest. And 20 years sounds like, OK, big deal. But, you know, in jazz, to keep something alive 20 years is like 100 years. And how has the financing changed? We have so many people who are helping us. Like this guy who was tuning the piano three times last evening — for free. He’s coming to Pilsen to tune the piano — for free. The famous artist Zdeněk Lhotský, who made the Bohemia Jazz Award — a glass sculpture symbolizing a Czech cobblestone — he makes the award for free. There are so many people who make it happen, and that’s the most beautiful thing of the festival, that there are people who say, “What can I do? I’ll do it.” I think it’s like that in jazz everywhere. You can not do that without being passionate about it. At the end of the day you go, “Wow, we did that. Wasn’t that a great concert?”
Enright: In the early years of the festival, you would present free concerts in Prague’s Old Town Square. Why the switch from there to the smaller venue of the Royal Garden?
Linka: Four years ago, there was a change in the government of Prague, and there was a young woman who wouldn’t give us the permit to be on the square. And I went to talk to her, and she said, “I don’t like any blowup things on the square, like giant beer bottles and signs.” And I said we never had that. And she said, “You know what, I don’t like that you are privatizing the square.” And I said what do you mean by this? Czech Republic was a Communist country for many years. And for many years the Communists had these lines where if you were, say, growing tomatoes on your balcony, you were privatizing, and they would send you to Siberia. Whatever they wanted to do, they could do. And she said to me this line that they have, and I could not take it because I have been living outside of the Czech Republic for 45 years — 40 years in New York and five years in Sweden — and somebody suddenly tells me that I, doing a jazz festival for free in Old Town Square, I am privatizing that square, and she will stop it. And I walked out of her office and I said that’s it, we aren’t doing it in the square anymore.
Right after that we got a new Czech President, Petr Pavel, a fantastic guy, and I got a phone call from his office asking, “Would you like to be at the Prague Castle?” And my heart jumped. Somebody had said, no, this can’t continue, and then from that moment on we’ve been at the castle. And I really appreciate it. It’s different than the square, where we did two nights with like 40,000 people coming through, and it was not the mission of the festival to cater to people who know every album of Charles Lloyd, but instead to reach people who never heard of him who walk by and just say, “Man, this guy sounds pretty good!” You have no idea how many people send me emails or Facebook messages telling me, “I did not know that I like jazz.” Because many people have this kind of feeling that jazz is difficult, jazz is callous, jazz is something that I would not understand anyway so let’s not even go into this. And that’s what Bohemia Jazz Fest is: You can come with the whole family. I’ve had so many emails from people who said, “I came to your festival and met a really nice person, the same evening we were very close, and nine months later we have this kid,” and here’s their picture. And I’m not taking any credit, but that’s another way how music brings people together. That’s the festival. Is it my idea? No, it’s not my idea.
For many years in New York, very close to our house, Sonny Rollins would play a concert once a year for free. Are there are plenty of good saxophone players in New York who would play for free. But this is Sonny Rollins. I love that when you offer something to the public it can inspire somebody, and somebody else can inspire you. And you never know who it will be — a teacher in your high school, your wife, your parents, but it can also be somebody playing, amazingly, as you walk by. And it happened to me as a young boy, and I was struck by this and started to go to the U.S. embassy to borrow LPs, and one of them was Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan’s Carnegie Hall concert. And who’s playing on that album? John Scofield. He was 22 years old and it was his first recording. He’d never played with them. He borrowed a car from his sister and drove to New York. And here I am borrowing this LP from the embassy, taping it on my tape recorder before bringing it back. And now John is one of my best friends who’s willing to give me all of his LPs.
How do I translate my life into this, that I am born in Prague, close to Old Town Square, and suddenly I’m like, “Jazz is fantastic,” and I go through the world, and maybe my mission was to bring it back instead of just experiencing the greatest jazz in New York? But once a year it’s Bohemia Jazz Fest, and I feel like I’m sharing my blessings for life, even as I tell you that I’ve had to sell two guitars just to pay our bills. And many times I am carrying everything for the fest, transporting our merchandise, putting up the fences, solving logistical problems. And I’m 65 and asking myself how long do I want to do this? And I say, well, I can still do it. When I can not do it, I will not do it. But that’s Bohemia Jazz Fest. DB
“There’s nothing quite like it,” Springs says of working with an orchestra. “It’s 60 people working in harmony in the moment. Singing with them is kind of empowering but also humbling at the same time.”
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