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Concept
Vlasta Průchová
Summary
Vlasta Průchová (12 July 1926, Ružomberok – 16 June 2006, Prague) was a Czech jazz singer. From the second half of the 1940s, she gradually built up her leading position in the Czech jazz scene. Průchová was the mother of the renowned Czech-American pianist and composer Jan Hammer.
Průchová was born to Czech parents who worked in Ružomberok, Slovakia at that time. She was baptised by the Slovak priest Andrej Hlinka. At the end of 1938, the family was forced to leave Slovakia, and they resided in Prague.
Following the Second World War, Průchová had her first experience with jazz music. At the Filmové žně (Film Harvest Festival) in Zlín she attended the performance of the "ensemble of swing stars" Elit Club. Among the members of the band was also her future husband, Jan Hammer Sr. She later saw their performances in the Prague palace Metro, where the band played in the "swing pub" Akvarium. From her youth, she showed a musical talent in singing and Jan Hammer Sr. finally persuaded her to join the band. In 1947, she began to perform in the first Prague jazz club, Pygmalion. The band was renamed Rytmus 47. In the same year she married Hammer. Pygmalion was closed in 1949 and following that Průchová sang in the legendary Prague dance-hall Lucerna Palace. At the same time she also collaborated with significant Czech jazz instrumentalists Luděk Hulan, Ferdinand Havlík and others.
In the 1950s, Průchová — as a member of the Karel Krautgartner Orchestra — became one of the most successful participants of the Czechoslovak song competition Hledáme písničku pro všední den (In Search of a Song for the Weekday). In 1952, she was voted the best Czech jazz woman singer in the poll of the samizdat Boptime.
At the beginning of the 1960s, Průchová continued her concert career together with her husband, the cardiologist and musician Jan Hammer Sr. Their children, Jan and Andrea, occasionally joined them on piano and drums. Their flat became a place of regular jam sessions with fellow musicians.
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