Pavel Wlosok Quartet
Performing live in the corner at Little Jumbo, 241 Broadway, Five Points, Asheville. No cover. Pull up a seat.
Admission no cover · ever
Pavel Wlosok brings his quartet to the corner for an evening of contemporary jazz played by musicians who have all, in their own ways, arrived in Asheville by circuitous routes. Pavel himself came from Ostrava via Texas, a Czech pianist who landed at the University of North Texas in 1995 with one backpack and has spent the decades since building one of the more quietly remarkable careers in American jazz. He is joined by Jacob Rodriguez, a San Antonio-bred saxophonist whose credits run from Michael Bublé's Grammy stages to Ambrose Akinmusire's Brooklyn sessions, and drummer Ryan Ptasnik, whose road has wound from Wyoming high school band rooms to a stage built of two pickup trucks at the base of Pik Lenin in Kyrgyzstan.
Expect originals alongside deep-catalog interpretations, the lyricism of Pavel's writing anchoring music that moves with the unhurried authority of players who trust one another and the form. These are serious musicians in a room that encourages seriousness to loosen up, the creature watching from its corner, the weird art doing its weird art thing on the walls.
Part of Little Jumbo's curated jazz series. Free to attend.
A Czech pianist who arrived in Texas in 1995 with one backpack and fifteen hundred dollars in savings, Pavel Wlosok has spent the decades since building one of the more quietly remarkable careers in American jazz. He was sixteen when the Velvet Revolution opened the borders of his country, and the music that had been rationed behind the Iron Curtain came flooding in all at once, classical and bebop and everything after. You can still hear that absorption in the way he plays, a pianist who moves between Moravian folk inheritance and post-bop language as though the distance between them were a rumor.
His resume reads like a who's-who of the last forty years of the music: Joe Lovano, Randy Brecker, Ingrid Jensen, Kenny Wheeler, Paquito D'Rivera, Dave Liebman. He holds the Gil Evans Fellowship, given to a single composer-arranger each year. He has been a professor of jazz at Western Carolina University since 2002 and had a piece premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2007. He records in Sylva, tours Prague and Krakow each summer, and teaches the next generation of Southern Appalachian jazz players the rest of the year.
None of that tells you what it's like to hear him. Pavel plays with the unhurried authority of someone who has nothing to prove and a lot he still wants to say. His touch is lyrical without being sentimental, his harmonic language spacious, his lines built with the architectural care of a composer who also happens to improvise. This performance is part of Little Jumbo's curated music series and is free to attend, the creature watching from its corner as ever.
From San Antonio street corners to Michael Bublé's Grammy-winning stages, Jacob Rodriguez has woven a musical tapestry that spans continents and genres. This Manhattan School of Music alumnus doesn't just play saxophone—he channels stories through reed and breath, whether he's painting midnight hues with Ambrose Akinmusire in Brooklyn's underground scene or igniting arena crowds alongside pop royalty. Now nestled in Asheville's Blue Ridge embrace, Jacob has become the valley's secret weapon, teaching the next generation at UNC Asheville while moonlighting with everything from Hard Bop Explosion's fire-breathing quintet to the mystical rhythms of Coconut Cake's traditional Congolese explorations. His baritone sax doesn't just anchor the low end—it rumbles with the wisdom of a world traveler who's learned that the most profound music happens when you're brave enough to blend your influences into something entirely new.
Ryan Ptasnik honed his drumming skills in Pinedale High School band classes in Wyoming, a foundation that would eventually carry him from garage bands to performing at the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Shymkent, Kazakhstan. This jazz-trained drummer has become a versatile force in multiple musical worlds, from his work with the experimental group Moyindau—where he performed Kazakh poetry settings at the base of Pik Lenin in southern Kyrgyzstan on a stage constructed from two pickup trucks—to anchoring the Asheville-based Grateful Dead tribute band Clouds of Delusion.
Ptasnik's musical journey includes traveling to Central Asia with pianist Alex Kreger, where they presented music in Tajikistan with Norwegian saxophonist Mette Henriette, and recording with Moyindau—a group that blended jazz with arrangements of popular and folk tunes from Macedonia and Tajikistan. Now based in Asheville, he maintains an active presence supporting local artists like Whitney Monge and Rick Cooper at venues like Highland Brewing, while also serving as the rhythmic backbone for Batdorf & The Brother Wolf.
From Wyoming band rooms to makeshift mountain stages in Kyrgyzstan to Asheville's vibrant music scene, Ptasnik proves that the best drummers don't just keep time—they become the adaptable foundation that allows wildly diverse musical visions to flourish, whether channeling Jerry Garcia's spirit or bringing Kazakh poetry to life through rhythm.