Igor writes: Yesterday`s concert was with one of the most famous trumpeters in the world, a player with a capital P. He is a native of Bernolakovo, but has been living and composing for quite a few years in the United States - Laco Deczi and his group Celula New York had, in Kosice`s GeS club, what could be considered as `concert of the year` in this eastern metropolis.

What took place on the stage at GeS was simply one unbelievable slice. Laco and his band (son Vajco on the drums, Walter Fischbacher on the keyboards, and Steve Clarke on the bass guitar) put on a show of an otherworldly nature. In a concert split into two parts, songs from their latest album titled "King" were at the forefront, but some older compositions were heard, dominated by hard-hitting songs with a Latin-American feel… a few dancing girls and you would feel like you were in Rio… The musicianship of Laco and his band would be hard to define without the term excellent. Celula ticked like a Swiss watch, even though each player was given enough room for their own solo breaks (especially stirring were the chops of bass player Steve Clarke, although Vajco certainly wasn`t left far behind), and as a group it was very tight. I don`t think I am alone as one who would gladly experience the entire Celula concert again in the near future.

During the break, we posed a few questions to Laco Deczi in the dressing room.

Most musicians of today, often coming from the ranks of excellent players, talk about their chances at success abroad in very skeptical terms. You are proof positive that it is possible, and that `one of ours` can become a legend…

The West is full of legends (ha ha).

…and you are doubtlessly one of them…

Well, maybe a little bit. It is true that my name would show up in the American jazz dictionary, but that doesn`t mean anything. In America there are many famous and really good musicians… I consider it more important that we managed to gain the respect of musicians. That is the hardest of all.

How much did luck play a role, or being in the right place at the right time?

I meet many people who are forever in the right place, the fact that they play like shit means they will never establish themselves. This type I would call a `hustler`. These people are everywhere, always trying to get into something. But they are always suspect, because someone just sticking their nose into things never has time to practice or devote to music.

I know that Clifford Brown was among your idols as a player, meaning that the development of your musical character was strongly influenced by the music of the fifties…

Clifford Brown was basically some kind of jazz Bach. Nobody will dream up anything better because he brought things full circle, it didn`t matter if he played be-bop with a band, that the rhythm went to a regular four beat… If he were still alive, he today would surely play Latin grooves and those types of things. But that was the era, and then it was really about music ahead of its time.

Now it`s the opposite. How do you feel about the conveniences of modern music?

In my music I utilize keyboards - our keyboardist always has to have two, on the upper one there are set breaks which I play with. We use technology in the sense of filling out the sound, I certainly am not interested in `electronic` music itself - drum machines and the like. Not that. When recording in the past, we employed automated sounds a few times, but usually we try to avoid that. I am all for natural instruments - drums, bass… As I say, keyboards are like a sound supplement for us.

Why did your son Vajco start to play with you so late on?

Because he couldn`t play with us. He was looking after his own jazz club in New York. It was basically a restaurant and club which had to be looked after from morning to night, so he wouldn`t get robbed. Along with that, he had other things going with other bands and could not really travel outside of New York. Then he sold the club and finally had time to tour with us.

The group Celula is made up of real top musicians, and each member has their own, or other, activities going on. Is it a problem to keep them together, especially when jazz is not really the most lucrative `business` and most jazzmen are forced to look for more commercial gigs?

First of all, we are very excited by the fact that mainly young people are coming to see us, while the older crowd are saving themselves by sitting home on their asses… I don`t know, it seems the younger crowd understand the rhythms better… The biggest reward for me is when a teenager comes up after the show, and is no expert on jazz, but says they really liked what we played even though they don`t know what to call it.

The same thing would interest me, in the show there are various influences, from classical jazz all the way to Latin-American music…

It is a mixed bag - Latin, a little be-bop… In any case I was tired of playing four-time, with the drummer behind just going ba-boom, ba-boom…

Most of the songs on the new album come from your pen. Does that mean that the boys have their `hands tied` somewhat?

No, the opposite, I always tell the boys to bring in their own songs. Since Steve was working on his own solo album at the time, he only brought one song to “King”. We are practically all permanently busy, so we don`t have a lot of time for recording. The new album was basically put together in two weeks. We mainly included songs which we had been playing in the clubs. Whenever we get back from a tour, we start thinking about how the next album should be… Since we all have our own studios, we try to join our strengths and make the following album as perfect as possible sound-wise.

Over the last few years you have been active in film music, I have even heard that you are planning something with classical music…

Yes, I am. For a few years now, but since I am a lazy dog I haven`t yet thrown myself into it. I started to write a few songs which I wanted to record with a symphony orchestra. I do not want, however, for it to be some mix of jazz and classical, not that. It would be regular classical music. I have always dreamed of one day using the huge power of a symphony. I am working on it gradually, but I still cannot say that I`m in the finishing stages. Maybe I could see it through here, with the Kosice symphony, or possibly in Prague.

You are a typical concert player. Do your albums come about in a `live` style, or do you record the songs the traditional way - instrument by instrument?

The majority of things are recorded alone, because in the studio the trumpet and drums would overwhelm each other and the sound might be too raw. So we prefer recording into playback.

Supposedly Vajco is working on a solo album, and you might be sharing in the preparation…

In the near future we should finally get to that. Maybe we will start up as soon as we get back from this tour.

Do you have a concrete image of how it should be?

Just something vague at the moment. But it will likely be in the spirit of Vajco dreaming up some grooves and me playing into it… I want to do make it somewhat `refined`, and not just a series of drum solos.

One advantage you have is doubtlessly the fact that you have your own studio. Have you ever considered straight up establishing your own record label?

That`s right, the studio is a great advantage. As for putting out albums, we do that by a very common system, meaning that after a recording has been completed, we go looking for a label. That was true in the case of our latest album "King" - it was purchased by the Multisonic label which has agencies and representation in Germany and Prague. All told, we probably recorded eleven CD`s, from which six or seven we were able to sell to record distribution companies. The rest have not hit the record store shelves yet, and I have got a feeling they probably never will. Those old recordings I don`t even bother to listen to anymore, because sound-wise they are somewhere else, so there woundn`t really be a point.

Once I read somewhere that a few times you were not paid for your concerts in America…

Of course such things happen since we mainly perform in clubs, and some of them are dives… But there are also pleasant experiences, like when I get together a show with my friend - the percussionist from Miles Davis - Vincent Louis… But enough people show up to most of those concerts in small clubs, so it`s all right. It depends on what kind of club we play in, as to what kind of formation is put together, sometimes it is just a duo - me and the keyboardist…

The boss of GeS club, Gejza Szabados, let me in on the fact that you once said that every true jazzman should kill one singer per day…

And that still holds true (ha ha). It is just that the singers have really screwed the music up. It is enough to move around the tuner on the radio to discover that every station sings… Now it has gone so far that the musicians in a concert are stuck back behind a wall of smoke… I have a friend who plays in the backing band for the Backstreet Boys, which I think is a really good group, except the musicians who perform with them are almost always dressed in black, hidden in the back so they can`t be seen… but those guys are good singers.

Supposedly you live in the neighborhood of famous Jan Hammer from Prague…

Johnny lives three quarters of an hour from me…

… with whom you, at one time, were to throw some kind of project together…

There was a period of time when we really did discuss something like that, but now he doesn`t feel like doing anything. He made a lot of music for films - like for the show Miami Vice and such, and earned enough money, so now he is a little, as they say, out of the mix. Just recently I met him and he was complaining that things somehow aren`t working out in that area these days… I called him to come over with us, we`ll play together and it will be great, but he doesn`t really feel like it…

A while ago, Czech Television broadcast an interesting documentary about you…

That was filmed by Jiri Strecha, a great documentary filmmaker and a good friend. I hardly noticed it was being done, because we were just chatting about different things… I didn`t register that he had the camera on. I brought him along to New York, showed him the places where I had played, or play now. It was all quite cool, Jiri is a real pro.

Do people in America regard you as a star?

Times have changed, today almost every body plays in small clubs. The real stars were twenty or thirty years ago, that `star making` has somehow disappeared. America just has so many perfect musicians, that the audiences there are not interested in any kind of stars. They just want to be entertained, and that`s what counts. Your music had better grab them by the throat, or they will just move on. That means no free-jazz or farting around like that, that we don`t play…

At this moment, Vajco Deczi turns up in the dressing room: "The main thing is for the chicks to come and get laid…(ha ha)"

That`s exactly right (ha ha). He`s right. The worst thing with that, is only guys come to our shows. It is just a shame that we`re not gay, or it would be really cool…"

Please do not get upset, but it seems to me sometimes that you `function` more as a rocker than a jazzman… A slightly older Keith Richards…

"(ha ha ha ) You know , what really pisses me off, is that some philosophers messed up jazz by trying to give it an exact form and so on. Luckily, Miles Davis came on the scene and turned it all around, fit in some things from rock, some funk… So then the music he makes cannot be characterized as pure jazz. But he does it really well. Nothing is violated…"

To this point, has there been any one moment in your career which you are especially proud of?

Now that is a tough question… I can`t come up with one precise moment.

Are you still in contact with the musical scene back home, or have you drifted apart over the years?

As far as music is concerned, only with guitarist Zdenek Fiser and his band, otherwise no.

Then I guess there is no sense in asking whether something appealed to your ears from the local scene…

To tell the truth, I haven`t had the opportunity to listen to anything, because when we come to Slovakia we have concerts almost every day, so no time is left to go to a club in the evening and listen to a band. Nor have I received any CD`s or recordings from local bands.

What does your typical day in America look like?

Hard to say. We either have a practice session or a show, or some job in the studio… I moved house a while ago, so I don`t live exactly in New York anymore, but about an hour away by car. Vajco lives in the center of town. When I go there, it is only to play.

Igor Petruska

Photo: Karol Hatala