NajPonk - Just For My Friends: Jazz At Greville Lodge Volume One (2009)

Najponk's music comes directly from the roots of jazz, i.e. the blues and a swinging rhythm. His playing is a distinctive rendition of classic jazz withou any needless avant-garde experiments. It is rich in inventiveness, virtuosity and enthusiasm. With his poetic musical expression, along with fine keystrokes and perfect jazz timing, he belongs among the "storytellers", which is the higest achievement in the world of music. His own compositions greatly reflect the development of the jazz tradition within its original rules.

Najponk (Jan Knop) playing the piano since she was nine years old and about since then is quite obsessed with jazz. In 1990 he founded his trio and quartet later Najponk Q. He won first place in the international jazz piano competition in Ostrava in 1995 and was invited to the project of the Czech Radio Tribute to Thelonious Monk. Among the players, after which his career has performed and collaborated include Janusz Muniak, Dave Liebman, Piotr Baron, Osian Roberts and George Mraz. Whether solo or in a trio Najponk performs at jazz festivals from Novosibirsk to západoanglický Cheltenham and graduated from the prestigious A Trane Jazz Club in Berlin. His trio has often been chosen by the band for the first time in 1998 in a survey of the Czech Jazz Society. For his solo album "Just About Love" received the prestigious Angel Award 2001 in the category of Jazz & Blues. Album "Going It Alone" was evaluated in a survey of 1999 Harmonie Magazine. About his play Prague Post wrote: "The Pianist Najponk plays straight jazz, is inventive, original solos and alchemy that is pure magic. Exciting improviser, combining the freshness of Oscar Peterson with eccentric brilliance of Thelonious Monk and the classic touch of Wynton Kelly and Red Garland. "

Among jazz musicians and fans Najponk is known as a jazz collector with an encyclopedic knowledge of virtually everything that relates to jazz. He is considered one of the greatest Czech connoisseurs of the genre, but also on the Jaroslav Jezek Conservatory taught his history of jazz. As a listener he says he has a far wider range: from Led Zeppelin over Megadeth, The Beatles, Frank Sinatra to classical. His life is the swinging rhythm so as answering the phone Najponk often you can report the slogan: "Four are the best!"