Bugatti Step

The composer of the piano foxtrot Bugatti step, Jaroslav Jezek (born 1906 in Prague, died 1942 in New York), is primarily known as a pioneer in Czech popular jazz music, as well as the artist behind the music for the majority of plays by renowned comedians Jiri Voskovec and Jan Werich, written for the avantgarde Osvobozene divadlo (Prague Liberated Theatre) during its heyday, between the years 1925 and 1938. At the same time, however, one should not forget that especially the Piano Concerto (1927) and the Little Suite (1928) place Jezek among the leading figures of international Modernism (Paul Hindemith, Erwin Schulhoff and others) who, in the 1920s and 1930s, strove to incorporate jazz elements into serious music.

Bugatti step, written in 1931 as the overture to the play Don Juan & Comp., thanks to its true dance character and immense virtuosity, hovers on the borderline between these two musical genres. Jezek, a great sports fan, chose the title in reference to the Bugatti with which Louis Chiron had won at the Masaryk Circuit in Brno and Eliska Junková had won the Targa Florio race in Sicily. At the same time, one has the impression of hearing the four-stroke engine of such a car in the pulsating rhythm of the composition based on fourths.