In the forty years of his active musical career, Ernest Oláh never released an album under his own name. He was at least able to achieve posthumous recognition when his long awaited CD was released under the name “Ernest Oláh: Oscar on my Mind” in 2003.
The album was released thanks to generous support from a German investor and was a coproduction between Slovak Radio and the small independent publisher Jazz and Arts from Stuttgart in Germany. The tracks were selected from Ernest’s studio and concert recordings with his last trio (Imrich Mozi – bass and Jozef Doeme – drums) and the final solo suite "As We Were Together" by his son Roman.
International critical response to the album “Ernest Oláh: Oscar on my mind” was generous with praise and hailed the artist as one of the finest pianists in Europe. This was despite the fact that it was not perhaps the album that he himself would have released, but it was impossible to deny the efforts of his son and close friends and family to tell the story of an extraordinary artist.
It is the highly dramatic story of an artist whose performances always openly and sincerely honoured his lifelong role model Oscar Peterson. Less than two years before his sudden death, Ernest and his last trio performed by invitation of Dodo Sosoka at the well-known Jazz Gallery in Piestany, for Lada Kerndl in Brno and finally for Patrick Spanko in the series of recorded public performances Jazz pod Pyramídou in Bratislava. A follow up tour to Berlin and other major European cities remained an unfulfilled dream. At that time no one except perhaps Ernest himself, who had been ill for a long time, could guess that these concerts would be his last.
"Fritzen in Berlin" - In 1967 he received the opportunity quite by chance to perform with the legendary jazz quartet of Michael Fritzen. The meeting was the result of a chain of coincidences worthy of a Hollywood film. Fritzen, an alto saxophonist had been invited at a late date to record the third in series of recordings of modern jazz in East Germany under the name Modern Jazz Studio Nr. 3. Recording was scheduled to take place at the Amiga studios of East German Radio. Originally Joachim Kuhn and his brother Rolf had been booked to play but they had escaped to West Berlin. Fritzen accepted the invitation but to make up a quartet alongside the excellent bassist Klaus Koch and drummer Wolfgang Winkler he still needed a pianist and time was short. It so happened he found Ernest, who was performing in Berlin with Velcovsky’s orchestra at the time. In the end, the recording was made in a single day without any practice or warm-up. Amiga released the LP in 1969.
"ForevErnest" is the CD release from 2013. Ernest Olah presents himself as author of very sensitive originals which are published here the first time ever. His compositions are interpreted at mastery level in a new and fresh format by the rising star of the Slovakian and international jazz scene Ondrej Krajnak. His solo piano convincingly combines piano artistry of two different generations of Slovak artists who have never met in person. The publisher is Hevhetia Records, a leading independent brand, known for its unique agility and transcending genres. Even this time the music has interesting parameters and valuable correlations. Please visit Ondrej Krajnak's website to learn more.
After many years of search and preparation, Klaudius Kováč could eventually dedicate himself to a new project "Reminiscence" in 2023. As one of the most sought-after pianists on the Czecho-Slovak and European jazz scenes, he has created together with his equally talented regular collaborators, Tomáš Bartoš and Marián Ševčík this fantastic album that is both uniquely his and uniquely Ernest’s.
