Sato-San To

THOM HERIAN alias Drama Jacqua  comes from a family of musicians. He was born on August 7, 1980 in Teplice, Czech Republic, where he also graduated from musical conservatory, specializing in drums and percussion. He has been beating the drum set since early childhood and is currently involved in several musical projects (Segundo, Feng Jung Song & Trio PUO, Montage, WNP, Skete Fotr, S.O.I.L). He currently lives and makes music in Prague. It may be said that Jacqua's drumming specialty are grooves of broken fast-paced beats, often described as Jungle or D'n'B. He is inspired by players deeply rooted in today's rather broad and undefined style of jazz music. Furthermore, Tom Herian is extensively engaged in composition of electronic music and working with sound. He has experimented in this field since the end of the 90's. Herian's solo project in experimental electronic music, Drama Jacqua, is turning out to be the theme of the day. Yet another range of electronic experiment possibilities opens with the up and coming formation Montage, a balanced duet of samples and the voice of a young and promising singer, Klára Vytisková. In the future, Montage is to perform as a live band, combined with an electronic backbone. It would be most unfair not to mention the Segundo band, Drama being one of its founding members, employing the skills of an electronic magician here as well. The band is built on live performance (sax, bass, drums) and computer electronic music played out of a single audio deck. Nowadays, Jacqua focuses mainly on an electro-jazz-pop band called Soil. Soil is nothing new on Prague..s jazz scene. A new album is being released in spring.

OSKAR TÖRÖK was born 1979 in Humenné (SVK). After studies at the Classical Conservatory of Kosice and Bratislava, Slovakia moved to Prague where he studied at the Jaroslav Jezek Musical Conservatory. He has been engaged in many different projects ranging from dance music to bebop: NUO, Vertigo Quintet, MUFF, DJ Blue, Jaromir Honzak, Alan Vitous, Miriam Bayle, Ondrej Stveracek quintet, Zuzana Dumkova Band, Pavel Fajt, Bucinatores tentet, Musica Vizita, Karel Ruzicka, Martin Zbrozek etc. Apart from playing the trumpet, Oskar is a fine piano player and composer.
His diskography:
Vertigo Quintet – Vertigo Quintet (Amplión Records, 2005)
Vertigo Quintet – Live U Staré Paní (Amplión Records, 2006)
NUO – Multimusic Minibigband (Arta 2HP, 2004)
Triny – Aven (Indies Records, 2006)
Jan Burian – Dívčí Válka (Indies Records, 2006)
Tara Fuki – Auris (Indies Records, 2007)

JAROMÍR HONZÁK graduated from the Conservatory of Teplice in 1982, and completed additional studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He has performed with virtually all of the major figures of the Czech jazz scene and with many international artists such as Bill Hardman, Phil Wilson, Art Farmer, Victor Lewis, Amina Claudine Myers and Jorge Rossy. He has performed at a number of international festivals including Sea Jazz Helsinki, Ingolstadter Jazztage, Leverkusener Jazztage, the Jazz Jamboree Warsaw, and the Montreal International Jazz.
Jaromír has documented his work as a bandleader, bassist and composer on four recordings. His compositions and recordings have been awarded numerous prizes both in the Czech Republic and abroad. His last two CD's "A Question to All Your Answers" (Animal Music) and "Present Past" (Indies records) were both awarded the Angel prize for the best Czech jazz CD of the year (2007 and 2003). Jaromir's composition "Constant Struggle" from Present Past is featured in The European Real Book (Sher Music).
Jaromír leads two bands - the Czech-Polish group, the Jaromír Honzák Quartet, and quartet called Face of the Bass, and is the chairman of the jazz department (VOŠ JAZZ) at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague.