Episodes from the Spinning Ball

Saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, and visual artist Marcel Bárta entered the Czech jazz and improvisation scene while still a student and has since become one of its core members. He is a founding member of the electro-jazz quintet MUFF, the cult jazz sextet Vertigo and the duo DoMa Ensemble. Besides collaborating with many foremost artists from different genres on the home and international scene, he has been dedicating himself to composition, writing scenic music for the theatre company Farma v jeskyni (Farm in the Cave), among other projects. He is the recipient of multiple Czech Music Academy Awards in the jazz category, having also been nominated for the same award on a number of occasions. While Episodes from the Spinning Ball is the first recording to feature Bárta’s work exclusively, the eponymous composition is his first piece for a large ensemble. As composer and arranger he has taken part in dozens of projects and recordings, many of which were released by the label Animal Music. The new album brings a recording of a concert performance featuring the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, which took place as part of the jazz-symphonic crossover series New Horizons in February 2025 in the DOX+ Multifunction Hall in Prague. Composed on a commission from the orchestra, the work formally resembles a suite in three parts. It is performed, however, as a continuous flow of music. In the author’s own words, the piece “is an attempt to evoke a story that reflects my own planetary experience.” Combining composed music with improvisation, the piece bears traces of Bárta’s original style, known for example from his work for Vertigo or Muff. It is rooted in jazz and contemporary classical music and unfolds like an elaborate story in which densely composed soundscapes interweave with delicate melodies and fine-grained instrumentation and where order coexists with improvisation and melancholy passages alternate with psychedelia and humour. The jazz band in the recording features, alongside Marcel Bárta himself, trombonist Štěpán Janoušek, keyboardist and synth player Vojtěch Procházka, double bassist Miloš Klápšte and drummer Jan Chalupa. The whole jazz-symphonic ensemble is conducted by Bastien Stil who has had ample experience leading crossover projects.