Universal Syncopations II
Universal Syncopations II is an album by Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš recorded in 2004-05 and released on the ECM label. The Allmusic review by Alex Henderson awarded the album 3½ stars, stating, "The interesting thing is that while Universal Syncopations 2 stresses ensemble playing and team work, parts of the album are quite free. A quintessentially ECM aesthetic is much at work on this solid effort, which will be enthusiastically welcomed by those who complain that Vitouš hasn't recorded enough as a leader". All compositions by Miroslav Vitouš"Opera" - 11:16 "Breakthrough" - 5:32 "The Prayer" - 7:06 "Solar Giant" - 4:42 "Mediterranean Love" - 5:09 "Gmoong" - 6:13 "Universal Evolution" - 9:04 "Moment" - 2:58 Miroslav Vitouš — double bass, meditation bowl Randy Brecker — trumpet Gary Campbell — soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone Bob Mintzer — tenor saxophone, bass clarinet Bob Malach — tenor saxophone Daniele di Bonaventura — bandoneon Gerald Cleaver, Adam Nussbaum — drums Vesna Vasko-Caceres — voice Unnamed choir and orchestra
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist/electric keyboardist and composer. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta" and "Windows", are considered jazz standards; as a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed the fusion band Return to Forever. With Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era. Corea continued to pursue other collaborations and to explore musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he is known for promoting and fundraising for a number of social issues. Armando Corea was born in Massachusetts, he is of southern Spanish descent. His father, a jazz trumpeter who led a Dixieland band in Boston in the 1930s and 1940s, introduced him to the piano at the age of four. Surrounded by jazz, he was influenced at an early age by bebop and Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, Lester Young.
At eight he took up drums. Corea developed his piano skills by exploring music on his own. A notable influence was concert pianist Salvatore Sullo, from whom Corea started taking lessons at age eight and who introduced him to classical music, helping spark his interest in musical composition, he spent several years as a performer and soloist for the St. Rose Scarlet Lancers, a drum and bugle corps based in Chelsea. Given a black tuxedo by his father, he started playing gigs when in high school, he enjoyed listening to Herb Pomeroy's band at the time and had a trio that played Horace Silver's music at a local jazz club. He moved to New York City, where he studied musical education for one month at Columbia University and six months at Juilliard, he quit after finding both disappointing, but he liked New York City and made it the starting point for his career. Corea began his career in the early 1960s with Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann, Stan Getz, he released his debut album, Tones for Joan's Bones, in 1966.
Two years he released a trio album, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, with Roy Haynes and Miroslav Vitous. From 1968 to 1971 Corea had associations with avant-garde players, his solo style revealed a dissonant orientation. In 1970 he played electric piano on Larry Coryell's third album as a leader; the album was released on the Vanguard label with John McLaughlin on guitar, Miroslav Vitous on bass, Billy Cobham on drums. The album was produced by Daniel Weiss and engineered by David Baker with assistance of Paul Berkowitz. Spaces is sometimes considered to have started the jazz fusion genre, his avant-garde playing can be heard on his solo works of the period, his solos in live recordings under the leadership of Miles Davis, his recordings with Circle, his playing on Joe Farrell's Song of the Wind album on CTI Records. In September 1968 Corea replaced Herbie Hancock in Davis's band and appeared on Filles de Kilimanjaro, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew. In concert, Davis's rhythm section of Corea, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette combined elements of free jazz improvisation and rock music.
Corea experimented with using electric instruments the Fender Rhodes electric piano, in the Davis band. In live performance he processed the output of his electric piano with a device called a ring modulator. Using this style, he appeared on multiple Davis albums, including Black Beauty: Live at the Fillmore West and Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East, his live performances with the Davis band continued into 1970, with a touring band of Steve Grossman, tenor sax, Keith Jarrett, additional electric piano and organ, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Airto Moreira and Davis on trumpet. Holland and Corea left to form their own group, active in 1970 and 1971; this free jazz group featured drummer Barry Altschul. This band was recorded on Blue Note and ECM. Aside from soloing in an atonal style, Corea sometimes reached into the body of the piano and plucked the strings. In 1971 or 1972 Corea struck out on his own. In April 1971 he recorded the sessions that became Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 and Piano Improvisations Vol. 2 for ECM.
The concept of communication with an audience became a big thing for me at the time. The reason I was using that concept so much at that point in my life – in 1968, 1969 or so – was because it was a discovery for me. I grew up kind of only thinking how much fun it was to tinkle on the piano and not noticing that what I did had an effect on others. I did not think about a relationship to an audience until way later. In the early 1970s, Corea took a profound stylistic turn from avant-garde to a crossover jazz fusion style that incorporated Latin jazz with Return to Forever. Named after their eponymous 1972 album, the band relied on both acoustic and electronic instrumentation and drew upon Latin American styles more than on rock music. On their first two records, Return to Forever consisted of Flora Purim on vocals, Joe Farrell on flute and soprano saxophone, Airto Moreira on drums, Stanley Clarke on double bass. Drummer Lenny White and guitarist Bill Connors joined Corea and Clarke to form the second version of the group, which expanded the earlier Latin jazz elements with a more rock and funk-oriented sound inspired by the Mahavishnu Orchestra, led by his Bitches Brew bandmate John McLaughlin.
This incarnation of the group recorded the album Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy, before Connors' departure and replacement by Al Di Meola, present on the subsequent releases Where Have I Known You Before, No Mystery, Romantic Warrior. Corea's composition "Spain"
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia, or Czecho-Slovakia, was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993. From 1939 to 1945, following its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, the state did not de facto exist but its government-in-exile continued to operate. From 1948 to 1990, Czechoslovakia was part of the Eastern Bloc with a command economy, its economic status was formalized in membership of Comecon from 1949 and its defense status in the Warsaw Pact of May 1955. A period of political liberalization in 1968, known as the Prague Spring, was forcibly ended when the Soviet Union, assisted by several other Warsaw Pact countries, invaded. In 1989, as Marxist–Leninist governments and communism were ending all over Europe, Czechoslovaks peacefully deposed their government in the Velvet Revolution. In 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the two sovereign states of Slovakia.
Form of state1918 – 1938: A democratic republic championed by Tomáš Masaryk. 1938 – 1939: After annexation of Sudetenland by Nazi Germany in 1938, the region turned into a state with loosened connections among the Czech and Ruthenian parts. A large strip of southern Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine was annexed by Hungary, the Zaolzie region was annexed by Poland. 1939 – 1945: The region was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak Republic. A government-in-exile continued to exist in London, supported by the United Kingdom, United States and their Allies. Czechoslovakia adhered to the Declaration by United Nations and was a founding member of the United Nations. 1946 – 1948: The country was governed by a coalition government with communist ministers, including the prime minister and the minister of interior. Carpathian Ruthenia was ceded to the Soviet Union. 1948 – 1989: The country became a socialist state under Soviet domination with a centrally planned economy. In 1960, the country became a socialist republic, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
It was a satellite state of the Soviet Union. 1969 – 1990: The federal republic consisted of the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic. 1990 – 1992: Following the Velvet Revolution, the state was renamed the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, consisting of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, reverted to a democratic republic. NeighboursAustria 1918 – 1938, 1945 – 1992 Germany Hungary Poland Romania 1918 – 1938 Soviet Union 1945 – 1991 Ukraine 1991 – 1992 TopographyThe country was of irregular terrain; the western area was part of the north-central European uplands. The eastern region was composed of the northern reaches of the Carpathian Mountains and lands of the Danube River basin. ClimateThe weather is mild summers. Influenced by the Atlantic Ocean from the west, Baltic Sea from the north, Mediterranean Sea from the south. There is no continental weather. 1918–1920: Republic of Czechoslovakia /Czecho-Slovak State, or Czecho-Slovakia/Czechoslovakia 1920–1938: Czechoslovak Republic, or Czechoslovakia 1938–1939: Czecho-Slovak Republic, or Czecho-Slovakia 1945–1960: Czechoslovak Republic, or Czechoslovakia 1960–1990: Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, or Czechoslovakia April 1990: Czechoslovak Federative Republic and Czecho-Slovak Federative Republic The country subsequently became the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, or Československo and Česko-Slovensko.
The area was long a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the empire collapsed at the end of World War I. The new state was founded by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who served as its first president from 14 November 1918 to 14 December 1935, he was succeeded by his close ally, Edvard Beneš. The roots of Czech nationalism go back to the 19th century, when philologists and educators, influenced by Romanticism, promoted the Czech language and pride in the Czech people. Nationalism became a mass movement in the second half of the 19th century. Taking advantage of the limited opportunities for participation in political life under Austrian rule, Czech leaders such as historian František Palacký founded many patriotic, self-help organizations which provided a chance for many of their compatriots to participate in communal life prior to independence. Palacký supported Austro-Slavism and worked for a reorganized and federal Austrian Empire, which would protect the Slavic speaking peoples of Central Europe against Russian and German threats.
An advocate of democratic reform and Czech autonomy within Austria-Hungary, Masaryk was elected twice to the Reichsrat, first from 1891 to 1893 for the Young Czech Party, again from 1907 to 1914 for the Czech Realist Party, which he had founded in 1889 with Karel Kramář and Josef Kaizl. During World War I small numbers of Czechs, the Czechoslovak Legions, fought with the Allies in France and Italy, while large numbers deserted to Russia in exchange for its support for the independence of Czechoslovakia from the Austrian Empire. With the outbreak of World War I, Masaryk began working for Czech independence in a union with Slovakia. With Edvard Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Masaryk visited several Western countries and won support from influential publicists. Bohemia and Moravi
Clark Terry
Clark Virgil Terry Jr. was an American swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee. He played with Charlie Barnet, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, he was with The Tonight Show Band from 1962 to 1972. Terry's career in jazz spanned more than 70 years, during which he became one of the most recorded jazz musicians appearing on over 900 recordings. Terry mentored many musicians including Quincy Jones, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Dianne Reeves, Terri Lyne Carrington among thousands of others. Terry was born to Clark Virgil Terry Sr. and Mary Terry in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 14, 1920, he attended Vashon High School and began his professional career in the early 1940s, playing in local clubs. He served as a bandsman in the United States Navy during World War II, his first instrument was valve trombone. Blending the St. Louis tone with contemporary styles, Terry's years with Basie and Ellington in the late 1940s and 1950s established his prominence.
During his period with Ellington, he took part in many of the composer's suites and acquired a reputation for his wide range of styles, technical proficiency, good humor. Terry influenced musicians including Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, both of whom acknowledged Terry's influence during the early stages of their careers. Terry had informally taught Davis while they were still in St Louis, Jones during Terry's frequent visits to Seattle with the Count Basie Sextet. After leaving Ellington in 1959, Clark's international recognition soared when he accepted an offer from the National Broadcasting Company to become a staff musician, he appeared for ten years on The Tonight Show as a member of the Tonight Show Band until 1972, first led by Skitch Henderson and by Doc Severinsen, where his unique "mumbling" scat singing led to a hit with "Mumbles". Terry was the first African American, he said later: "We had to be models, because I knew we were in a test.... We couldn't have a speck on our trousers.
We couldn't have a wrinkle in the clothes. We couldn't have a dirty shirt."Terry continued to play with musicians such as trombonist J. J. Johnson and pianist Oscar Peterson, led a group with valve-trombonist Bob Brookmeyer that achieved some success in the early 1960s. In February 1965, Brookmeyer and Terry appeared on BBC2's Jazz 625. and in 1967, presented by Norman Granz, he was recorded at Poplar Town Hall, in the BBC series Jazz at the Philharmonic, alongside James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Bob Cranshaw, Louie Bellson and T-Bone Walker. In the 1970s, Terry concentrated on the flugelhorn, which he played with a full, ringing tone. In addition to his studio work and teaching at jazz workshops, Terry toured in the 1980s with small groups and performed as the leader of his Big B-A-D Band. After financial difficulties forced him to break up the Big B-A-D Band, he performed with bands such as the Unifour Jazz Ensemble, his humor and command of jazz trumpet styles are apparent in his "dialogues" with himself, on different instruments or on the same instrument and unmuted.
From the 1970s through the 1990s, Terry performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Lincoln Center, toured with the Newport Jazz All Stars and Jazz at the Philharmonic, was featured with Skitch Henderson's New York Pops Orchestra. In 1998, Terry recorded George Gershwin's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" for the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Red Hot + Rhapsody, a tribute to George Gershwin, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease. In November 1980, he was a headliner along with Anita O'Day, Lionel Hampton and Ramsey Lewis during the opening two-week ceremony performances celebrating the short-lived resurgence of the Blue Note Lounge at the Marriott O'Hare Hotel near Chicago. Prompted early in his career by Billy Taylor and Milt Hinton bought instruments for and gave instruction to young hopefuls, which planted the seed that became Jazz Mobile in Harlem; this venture tugged at Terry's greatest love: involving youth in the perpetuation of jazz.
From 2000 onwards, he hosted Clark Terry Jazz Festivals on land and sea, held his own jazz camps, appeared in more than fifty jazz festivals on six continents. Terry composed more than two hundred jazz songs and performed for eight U. S. Presidents, he had several recordings with major groups including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Dutch Metropole Orchestra, the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, hundreds of high school and college ensembles, his own duos, quartets, sextets and two big bands: Clark Terry's Big Bad Band and Clark Terry's Young Titans of Jazz. In February 2004, Terry guest starred on Little Bill, a children's television series. Terry was a resident of Bayside and Corona, New York moving to Haworth, New Jersey, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, his autobiography was published in 2011. Taylor Ho Bynum wrote in The New Yorker that it "captures his gift for storytelling and his wry humor in chronicling his early years on the road, with struggles through segregation and gigs in juke joints and carnivals, all while developing one of most distinctive improvisational voices in music history."According to his own website Terry was "one of the most recorded jazz artists in history and had performed for eight American Presidents."In April 2014, the documentary Keep on Keepin' On, followed Terry over four years, to document his mento
Village Gate
The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village, New York. Art D'Lugoff opened the club on the ground floor and basement of 160 Bleecker Street; the large 1896 Chicago School structure by architect Ernest Flagg was known at the time as Mills House No. 1 and served as a flophouse for transient men. In its heyday, the Village Gate included an upper-story performance space, known as the Top of the Gate. Throughout its 38 years, the Village Gate featured such musicians as John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw, Miles Davis, Vasant Rai, Nina Simone, Herbie Mann, Woody Allen, Patti Smith, Velvet Underground, Edgard Varèse, Aretha Franklin, who made her first New York appearance there; the show Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, debuted at the Village Gate in 1968. In the 1960s, radio DJ and Latin music advocate Symphony Sid hosted a regular Monday night concert at the Village Gate - "Monday Nights at the Gate" - featuring the best of New York's thriving Latin music scene.
As salsa music began to grow in popularity, the Alegre record label began to host quite a few events at the Village Gate - many of which resulted in live recordings. Some of the live recordings from the Village Gate were the Alegre All-Star Descarga sessions; the "Salsa Meets Jazz" series at the Village Gate was a seminal part of the history of New York Latin music. In 1977, WRVR jazz and Latin music DJ and jazz musician/conga drummer Roger Dawson created and hosted a weekly event that brought top Latin bands together with a guest jazz soloist. Dawson named the event "Salsa Meets Jazz". Sonny Stitt with Eddie Palmieri, Dexter Gordon with Machito, Dizzy Gillespie with Tito Puente, James Moody, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Hutcherson, David "Fathead" Newman, Slide Hampton, Pharoah Sanders, to name a few, all jumped in to "jam" with the best salsa bands of the time; the club hosted a benefit for Timothy Leary in May 1970 that featured performances from such counterculture luminaries as Jimi Hendrix and Allen Ginsberg.
From 1971 to 1973, a musical comedy revue called National Lampoon's Lemmings had a successful run at the Gate. It starred future comic notables John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Garry Goodrow, Christopher Guest, lampooned the 1969 Woodstock Festival, which had taken place upstate two years earlier, calling it "Woodchuck" and equating the entire hippie generation with lemmings bent on self-destruction. Let My People Come opened at the Village Gate Theater in 1974; the show broke all box office played for 1,167 performances. Its transfer to the Morosco Theatre on Broadway was not as successful and closed after 106 performances, it has appeared all over the world. From 1989 to 1991, the improvisational comedy troupe Noo Yawk Tawk performed at the upstairs theater; the group was conceived and directed by Richmond Shepard, a world-renowned mime, actor and teacher. All of the performances for Noo Yawk Tawk were improvised. Characters may have been never the sketches or the dialogue; the audience always set the scene and conditions for each improvisation, so every performance was different.
The cast included Stan Taffel, Marc Kudisch, Debra Wilson, Eric Douglas, Garry Goodrow, Miguel Sierra, Ken Dashow, Nola Roeper, Bonnie Comley, Richmond Shepard. Taffel would go on to win three Emmy Awards for his performances in The News In Revue on PBS. Kudisch earned a Tony nomination in 2002; the Village Gate name was again used in 1996 at 240 West 52d Street. Art D'Lugoff, co-producer of the show A Brief History of White Music was looking to rent the space in a site occupied by the Lone Star Road House; that incarnation and the show lasted until 1997. In 1998, the 52nd Street location was taken by a brief reincarnation of Max's Kansas City; the Village Gate closed its Greenwich Village location in February, 1994. The ground floor is occupied by CVS/Pharmacy; the off-Broadway capacity Village Theater, which hosted performances of the musically themed Love, Dream a Little Dream, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, Escape From Bellevue, occupied the sublevel performance space until fall 2007.
In spring 2008, the space was reopened as a multiuse performance venue and gallery bar called Poisson Rouge. The club is mentioned by salsa superstars Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz in their song Pancho Cristal, off their 1980 LP Los Durísimos. Vámonos pa'l Village Gate Que allí es donde usted va y ve Bravos de la tumbadora Y las estrellas de ahora; the club is mentioned again in the montuno:Pancho Cristal Descarga del Village Gate. as well as in Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan The Top Of The Gate a.k.a. Village Gate: Love Lemmings Yesterdays: An Evening with Billie Holiday Noo Yawk Tawk Beehive A... My Name Is Alice Rap Master Ronnie Lovesong Tommy Tune Atop The Gate The Charles Pierce Show The Village Gate Theater a.k.a. Village Gate: Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris The Real Live Brady Bunch and the Real Live Game Show Further Mo' Sid Caesar & Company: The Legendary Genius of Comedy Sing Hallelujah! National Lampoon's Class of'86 El Grande de Coca-Cola Lies & Legends: The Musical Stories of Harry Chapin Shades of Harlem Orwell That Ends Well One Mo' Time Sterling Silver Nightsong 2 by 5 Let My People Come National Lampoon's Lemmings A Quarter for the Ladies' Room Salvation Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Pari
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, the 14th largest city in the European Union and the historical capital of Bohemia. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 2.6 million. The city has a temperate climate, with chilly winters. Prague has been a political and economic centre of central Europe complete with a rich history. Founded during the Romanesque and flourishing by the Gothic and Baroque eras, Prague was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the main residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably of Charles IV, it was an important city to its Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city played major roles in the Bohemian and Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years' War and in 20th-century history as the capital of Czechoslovakia, during both World Wars and the post-war Communist era. Prague is home to a number of well-known cultural attractions, many of which survived the violence and destruction of 20th-century Europe.
Main attractions include Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, Old Town Square with the Prague astronomical clock, the Jewish Quarter, Petřín hill and Vyšehrad. Since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites; the city has more than ten major museums, along with numerous theatres, galleries and other historical exhibits. An extensive modern public transportation system connects the city, it is home to a wide range of public and private schools, including Charles University in Prague, the oldest university in Central Europe. Prague is classified as an "Alpha −" global city according to GaWC studies and ranked sixth in the Tripadvisor world list of best destinations in 2016, its rich history makes it a popular tourist destination and as of 2017, the city receives more than 8.5 million international visitors annually. Prague is the fourth most visited European city after London and Rome. During the thousand years of its existence, the city grew from a settlement stretching from Prague Castle in the north to the fort of Vyšehrad in the south, becoming the capital of a modern European country, the Czech Republic, a member state of the European Union.
The region was settled as early as the Paleolithic age. A Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the city was founded as Boihaem in c. 1306 BC by an ancient king, Boyya. Around the fifth and fourth century BC, a Celts tribe appeared in the area establishing settlements including an oppidum in Závist, a present-day suburb of Prague, naming the region of Bohemia, which means "home of the Boii people". In the last century BC, the Celts were driven away by Germanic tribes, leading some to place the seat of the Marcomanni king, Maroboduus, in southern Prague in the suburb now called Závist. Around the area where present-day Prague stands, the 2nd century map drawn by Ptolemaios mentioned a Germanic city called Casurgis. In the late 5th century AD, during the great Migration Period following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes living in Bohemia moved westwards and in the 6th century, the Slavic tribes settled the Central Bohemian Region.
In the following three centuries, the Czech tribes built several fortified settlements in the area, most notably in the Šárka valley and Levý Hradec. The construction of what came to be known as Prague Castle began near the end of the 9th century, growing a fortified settlement that existed on the site since the year 800; the first masonry under Prague Castle dates from the year 885 at the latest. The other prominent Prague fort, the Přemyslid fort Vyšehrad, was founded in the 10th century, some 70 years than Prague Castle. Prague Castle is dominated by the cathedral, which began construction in 1344, but wasn't completed until the 20th century; the legendary origins of Prague attribute its foundation to the 8th century Czech duchess and prophetess Libuše and her husband, Přemysl, founder of the Přemyslid dynasty. Legend says that Libuše came out on a rocky cliff high above the Vltava and prophesied: "I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars." She ordered a town called Praha to be built on the site.
The region became the seat of the dukes, kings of Bohemia. Under Holy Roman Emperor Otto II the area became a bishopric in 973; until Prague was elevated to archbishopric in 1344, it was under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Mainz. Prague was an important seat for trading where merchants from all of Europe settled, including many Jews, as recalled in 965 by the Hispano-Jewish merchant and traveller Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub; the Old New Synagogue of 1270 still stands in the city. Prague was once home to an important slave market. At the site of the ford in the Vltava river, King Vladislaus I had the first bridge built in 1170, the Judith Bridge, named in honour of his wife Judith of Thuringia; this bridge was destroyed by a flood in 1342, but some of the original foundation stones of that bridge remain in the river. It was named the Charles Bridge. In 1257, under King Ottokar II, Malá Strana was founded in Prague on the site of an older village in what would become the Hradčany area; this was the district of the German people, who had the right to administer the law autonomously, pursuant to Magdeburg rights.
The new district was on the bank opposite of the Staré Město, which had borough status and was bordered by a line of walls and fortifications. Prague flourished dur
Universal Syncopations
Universal Syncopations is an album by Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš recorded in 2003 and released on the ECM label. Thom Jurek of Allmusic states "Universal Syncopations is by turns a return to not the old forms, but rather to the manner of illustrating harmonic concepts in a quintet setting that allows for a maximum space between ensemble players while turning notions of swing and rhythmic invention on their heads... Universal Syncopations is one of the most gorgeous sounding and toughly played dates of the calendar year". All compositions by Miroslav Vitouš except as indicated."Bamboo Forest" - 4:37 "Univoyage" - 10:54 "Tramp Blues" - 5:19 "Faith Run" - 4:58 "Sun Flower" - 7:21 "Miro Bop" - 4:03 "Beethoven" - 7:18 "Medium" - 5:09 "Brazil Waves" - 4:26 Miroslav Vitouš — double bass Jan Garbarek — soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone Chick Corea — piano John McLaughlin — guitar Jack DeJohnette — drums Wayne Bergeron — trumpet Valery Ponomarev — trumpet, flugelhorn Isaac Smith — trombone
