Supraphon Release InformationThe 3 CD box set marking Jan Spálený’s seventieth birthday is made up of music he has personally selected. Over the five decades of his illustrious professional career, as an instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, lyricist, arranger, bandmaster and producer Spálený has tried out many a thing, yet his greatest achievement is perhaps the blending of various styles of music with the omnipresent blues and his favourite poetry. This box set serves to sum up some of the most important Spálený creations.Many of his pieces have been previously rereleased on CD but have long been unavailable, while this new set marks the debut release in this format of many others. The unifying element is a new remastering, for the most part from the original tapes (Zdeněk Šikýř in Hostivař) and always with Jan at the mixing desk. That’s why on some of the old songs you’ll hear sonic nuances you’ve never heard before. Karel Haloun’s sleeve makes use of the previous motifs and there are new photos taken by Martin Siebert, most notably those accompanying Ondřej Bezr’s interview with Jan Spálený.CD 1 contains the Nezval-esque set Edison and Signál času (Time Signal). CD 2 features Spálený’s two seminal solo albums Já se tě nevzdám (I Won’t Give You up) and Asi v tom bude nějakej háček (There Must Be a Catch in it). CD 3 brings extracts from the albums Havran (The Raven, including the title track, with Poe’s verse translated by Nezval), …ještě jednou si vrznout (Once more unto the Breach, with Ogden and Zábrana’s Balada o katovi), Zahrada v dešti (A Garden in the Rain, with Jiří Stránský’s Píseň o tvé ruce) and Vytopená dáma (Rainy Day Lady, with Hadač’s title track and Aviatik).Spálený with his own band, with ASPM, with a studio orchestra, with Mahagon, and with the occasional formation of his musical friends. Spálený as author, singer and instrumentalist. The box set doesn’t contain everything he has recorded over the decades, yet it does contain that which he likes to look back at now with a slightly nostalgic pride.Spálený’s musical time signals: splendid albums from 1978 to 2007!