Jiří Kotača - Our Stories (2024)

Czech trumpeter Jiří Kotača and Swedish guitarist Alf Carlsson are releasing a new album of nine original compositions with their band. It is rooted in modern jazz, but stylistically draws from jazz rock, modern mainstream, pop and Scandinavian lyrics. Award-winning artists Alf Carlsson and Jiří Kotač were first brought together by studying in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and shortly after Alf's visit to the Czech Republic, which eventually turned into a short tour and then a regular band. The band duo was completed by the most sought-after Slovak jazzmen of the youngest generation - Peter Korman on double bass and bass guitar and Kristián Kuruc on drums, and they still work in this line-up today. The first ideas for the new album began to be born already during the coronavirus pandemic: "In the second year of the pandemic, when we didn't play for more than a year, I met with Alf in Stockholm to start writing new music. The decision was made to use more live electronics. And we also wanted to go in a broader genre direction, to untie the boxes. That was the basic impulse. Nine diverse compositions await the listener. Some with a focus on jazz rock, fusion music, some more pop-tuned, some lyrical compositions, others more from the modern mainstream category. However, it still remains crucial for our music that it mixes various influences that we like," says Jiří Kotača about the album.