Ruchadze Band at Reduta Jazz Club

The Czech Republic is being taken by storm by Mr. Globetrotter himself, Konstantin Ruchadze, who has lived and performed in six different countries.At the end of the sixties, a music group calling itself Ruchadze Band emerged at the Strahov Student Club 1, then the most Western-oriented music club in Communist Czechoslovakia. With a very successful formula of Soul and Blues classics they were immensely popular with the Czech music audience. After the Warsaw-Pact armies occupied reform-willing Czechoslovakia, the band was forced to decide whether to change the musical direction or face a performance ban. This situation resulted in a splitting of the band. Some of the members chose to live in exile in the free West and others continued to live in Czechoslovakia accompanying officially accepted singers....

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The Czech Republic is being taken by storm by Mr. Globetrotter himself, Konstantin Ruchadze, who has lived and performed in six different countries.At the end of the sixties, a music group calling itself Ruchadze Band emerged at the Strahov Student Club 1, then the most Western-oriented music club in Communist Czechoslovakia. With a very successful formula of Soul and Blues classics they were immensely popular with the Czech music audience. After the Warsaw-Pact armies occupied reform-willing Czechoslovakia, the band was forced to decide whether to change the musical direction or face a performance ban. This situation resulted in a splitting of the band. Some of the members chose to live in exile in the free West and others continued to live in Czechoslovakia accompanying officially accepted singers.

The leader of the band, Konstantin Ruchadze, emigrated and lived in Austria (where he played with Peter Wolf - keyboard-player with Frank Zappa and today famous producer), Spain (where he was a welcomed musical guest at Salvador Dali's home) and finally in Holland, where he continues to live in the capital city of Amsterdam. Along with his own very successful projects, The Goblet Band and Hot Bolshevik (fusion, jazz, funk, r&b) he has performed there with stars of the Dutch music-scene including Jan Akkerman (legendary guitarist of the world-famous Dutch band Focus, who in 1973 was chosen as world's best lead guitarist) and Candy Dulfer (world-famous saxophone player with Prince).

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Konstantin and the rest of the old band came together and decided to return to their common music-roots to continue on the adventurous path of creativity for which the band was known. The overwhelming public reaction to the first concerts was the motivation to stay on course. Currently the band has undergone some personal changes including great young talent, revitalizing the band's image to establish links to a youthful audience.

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