Můj život s klarinetem - Vzpomínky legendárního kapelníka divadla Semafor – Havlík Ferdinand (2011)

Ferdinand Havlík is one of the most admired interpreters of jazz music among Czech professional musicians. He is a successful bandleader, composer, and also a well-known humorist, as readers could already see in the successful book Histories of Ferdinand Havlík, as recorded and retold by Jiří Suchý (Maxdorf 2008). The basic tone of Havlík's autobiography My Life with the Clarinet is somewhat more serious. Havlík's memories are a gripping story of Czech popular music in the second half of the 20th century. And it is clear that this is an authentic story, told vividly yet sensitively, without the sensationalism that is common today. This is particularly valuable among prominent figures in Czech popular culture, whose fates are often presented to the wider public in a purposefully distorted manner by tabloid media. With the exception of a close circle of Havlík's friends, few knew the other side of his personality, the non-receiving one. Ferdinand Havlík was throughout his life an exceptionally perceptive observer, a great psychologist, and moreover, a person so educated that while reading his memories, we inadvertently realize that we are reading the history of the entire Czech society. However, it is a history seen through the eyes of a person who, thanks to his talent and art, reached places that we...