Are big jazzbands no good anymore? Are they an anachronism surviving the last century or will they gain their place in the world of music as the classical symphony orchestras did, without changing much in all those years?
Lots of jazz music fans have asked this daring question - for it has been more than a hundred years that this fabulous music genre started to allure our ancestors. This question is especially popular with those who think that big-bands cannot survive their famous founding bandmasters.
As experience shows, in some cases it is not an irresolvable problem - but of course it takes plenty of hard work to keep the train going without its original engine driver who had also railed and maintained the track himself for years. The band founded by Gustav Frkal (who changed his and the band’s name due to the World War II stormy events after a chemical element, Bromine) signed up for their first professional engagement in June 1940 in the Radhoą> Hotel in Roľnov-pod-Radhoątěm. Not even Brom himself might have
anticipated that he would conduct this band until the day that he dies - September 25th 1995. During its fabulous career the band fulfilled all Brom‘s dreams - it won world-renown and in the 1960s it was rated one of the top ten big-bands of the world by the American experts. The greatest stars
of jazz and pop, such as Maynard Fergusson, Dizzy Gilespie, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Ray Conniff, Ben Cramer, VOX or Bill Ramsey joined the Gustav Brom big-band on stage and the band’s name became well known among the professionals as well as the discerning public.
In 1995 the band’s existence did not come to an end. A new phase in its life started, under a slightly changed name, conducted by Vladimír Valovič from the Slovakian capital, Bratislava. Valovič was appointed by Brom himself along with some of new musicians. The band became international, with members coming to the rehearsals not only from the Czech cities of Prague, Brno, Olomouc and Ostrava, but also from Bratislava. The express keeps going on. Since June 1940 Gustav Brom’s big-band’s name has appeared on more than 576 music records, of both local and foreign
origin, and the post-war recordings are becoming of interest to the record collectors. The band offers the best of jazz and pop music concert programs as well as music for parties, balls and shows.