In my student times I fall in love in Big Band. I was playing with several bands in Austria, Czech, Slovak republic, Poland and Chroatia. This made me to start to compose and do arragements for this kind of band. I joined to Matus´s band and wrote for him a couple of compositions.
After a while I started again to write original tunes for a big jazz orchestra. We were cooperating with some singers (Ester Wiesnerová, Peter Lipa), so I wrote some arragements for them, also we played some my author´s istrumental pieces. Great experience and fun……
„Matus Jakabcic CZ-SK Big Band“performed for the first time in public in 2004 at the „Czechoslovak Jazz festival“in Prerov, Czech Republic. The organizer of the festival commissioned Matus to form a Big band which would consist of players from both Czech and Slovak republic. The successful performance at this festival was a good start and brought the idea to continue the band on a more regular basis. Since then the big band performed at festivals and concerts all over Czech and Slovak republics as well as in Austria. In 2006 the band, together with a special guest, renowned Austrian saxophonist Harry Sokal, performed at the ORF Radiokulturhaus in Wien. The concert has been broadcasted to 16 countries all over the world within the EBU. A live recording of the concert has been released by ORF on a CD entitled „Matus Jakabcic CZ-SK Big Band featuring Harry Sokal“in 2007. Another live recording from a Concert at the Prague castle – October 2008 which was organized by the Czech president Vaclav Klaus was released on CD in September 2009. Another live recording from a concert at the Bratislava Philharmony i- January 2009 was released in December 2009. The band also performed P. I Tchaikovsky´s music from the ballet Nutcracker arranged by Duke Ellington. In 2010 is the band performing a new author´s program The Fools of Chelm, (mainly written by band´s bari sax player Erik Rothenstein) inspired by the book The Fools of Chelm from I.Bashevic Singer. „Matúš Jakabčic CZ-SK Big Band“consists of prominent jazzmen from both Czech and Slovak republic which have rich experience in playing in large jazz orchestras. Besides playing with the big band the majority of the players are leaders of their own projects. The repertory consists of compositions by Matus Jakabcic, Erik Rothenstein, Michal Motyl, as well as their original arrangements of standards.
