Festival Report

Jazz Brugge 2012
By Ken Waxman

When a festival like Jazz Brugge 2012 takes place in a Belgium town, designated by UNESCO World Heritage for its picturesque canals and loving preserved medieval buildings, a certain amount of time and space dislocation can be expected. Considering that concerts (October 4 to 7) took place in the attic performance space of the 12th century Sint-Janshospitaal museum or in a massive or a smaller hall of the four-seating tier Concertgebouw, purpose built in 2002, this time-shifting continued. Additionally, three of the most insightful performances melded celebration of art from earlier century with perceptive improvisations.

Most spectacular was an afternoon Sint-Janshospitaal multi-media presentation by France’s Collective ARFI. As individual details or entire scenes from Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s A La Vie, La Mort were projected on a giant screen, four ARFI members – trumpeter Jean Mereu, soprano and alto saxophonist Jean Aussanaire, bassist Bernard Santacruz and Laurence Bourdin on the hurdy-gurdy – provided interpretations of the rampaging skeletons, prone townsfolk and bleak landscapes. A triumph of Folklore Imaginaire it confirmed the spiritual intersection between Danse Macabre and the harsh, cascading textures of improvisers like the Ayler Brothers.

As impressive, but less gruesome were two sets on the Concertgebouw’s main stages by French horn players whose bands respectively reinterpreted the themes of Italian Claudio Monteverdi, whose work led encompassed Renaissance to Baroque compositions; or pieces by 17th Century Italian Baroque composer Antonio familiar violin concerto, The Four Seasons.

With an ensemble consisting of; Gavino Murgia playing soprano saxophone and singing bass, Katharina Bäuml playing Renaissance double reed woodwinds, Bruno Helstroffer on theorbe, a medieval lute, lyric soprano Guillemette Laurens and Michel Godard playing tuba’s ancestor, the serpent, and electric bass, this was far from your typical jazz combo. Goddard`s arrangements expanded Monteverdi’s adaption of basso continuo and polyphony with subtle multiphonics and improvisations from all. For instance, Helstroffer’s slurred fingering or Murgia's agitated licks were thoroughly contemporary; while the bass’s pedal-point pattern provided linking rhythms as did Murgia subterranean rumbles. Serpent slurs frequently created sympathetic obbligatos for Laurens expressive singing, while the pairing of supple soprano sax trills and Bäuml’s piercing schalmei lines were as effective as if a clarinet or oboe was in use.

Saxophonist Christophe Monniot on the other hand played up the populist and universal appeal of Vivaldi; as a jazzman, however he used these motifs as reference points and leitmotifs as others would utilize Duke Ellington or Thelonious Monk material. Tubaist Michel Massot provided the rhythmic foundation along with Monniot occasionally invoking “air bass” by singing a bass line into the mike with appropriate hand gestures. Drummer Eric Echampard’s rolls, pardiddles and pops touched on both rock and jazz beats, pianist Emil Spányi spun out appropriate swinging asides, while the all-saxophone Quatuor Arcanes was on hand to recreate Vivaldi’s themes as well as face off individuality or harmonize distinctively to give context to Monniot’s solos on soprano, alto and baritone. Overall the idea of mutating a famous concerto to fit another context worked admirably. Try to extend the metaphor by also exposing pre-recorded voices discussing climate change in French didn’t.

Another missed opportunity – but one that was wildly popular with the audience – was the Monk’n’Roll concept of tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Francesco Bearzatti and his confreres of Giovanni Falzone, who played trumpet and electronics and led sing-and-clap alongs; electric bassist Danilo Gallo and drummer Zeno de Rossi. Although each of the players has broken himself in other contexts, and Monk’s themes are no more sacrosanct than Ellington’s or Vivaldi’s; unlike the sympathetic genre-melding of Goddard and Monniot, this was a cut-and-paste job. Explaining that as forty-something musicians their sympathies were as much with heavy metal as Monk’s music, the four proceeded to mash up Monk themes with rock standards such as “Iron Man”, “Immigrant Song” and “Walk on the Wild Side”. Trouble was that once the Monk head was played, the band related ignored it until recapped at the end, with the rest of the time consisting of common rock tropes. De Rossi pummeled a backbeat; Gallo output was crunchingly repetative; heavily processed, Falzone’s capillary flourishes borrowed from Miles Davis’ fusion period and while pogoing up-and-down like a Red Hot Chilli Pepper, Bearzatti’s reed smears –while miming guitar strums – attempted to channel the spirit of Jimmy Page.

More praiseworthy initiatives were three duos linking jazz veterans with youngish players. One concert at the Concertgebouw’s Kamermuziekzaal united two Swiss players: pianist Irène Schweizer, 71 and soprano and tenor saxophonist Jürg Wickihalder, 39. One at Sint-Janshospitaal a day later matched British soprano and tenor saxophonist Evan Parker, 67, with Belgian bassist Peter Jacquemyn, 49; while Swiss percussionist united two Swiss players: pianist Irène Schweizer and soprano and tenor saxophonist Jürg Wickihalder, 39, another two days later in the same place, featured 75-year-old percussionist Pierre Favre, and fellow Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser, 31.

An object lesson on how actually to blend Monk tunes with others, the two joyously dipped in-and-out of “Ruby, My Fear”, “Little Rootie Tootie” and other Monkisms without altering the music’s flow. Originals mixed with allusions to Charles Mingus and Carla Bley, with Schweizer played with the economy that comes from of self-sufficiency, slipping in blues or boogie woogie references which vanished almost as quickly as they were heard. Able to produce Booker Ervin-like hollers or telescope his breaths, Wickihalder created meaningful comments whether he was, blowing two saxes at once to expose polyphonic contrast, blowing into the soprano’s bell instead of the mouthpiece, or disassembling his horns to display the sonic qualities of each part.

Conversant with every texture and timbre of the saxophone is Parker who produced to underline t the sonorous possibilities of both his horns as Jacquemyn, whose strikingly human-like wood sculptures were on display at Sint-Janshospitaal during the festival, ripped and hacked at plus slapped and scrubbed his bass’s strings. Sporadically inserting two bows behind his strings for reflective multiphonics when both were moved, Jacquemyn, frequently smacked his bow sul tasto, not only in the warm mid-range, but also sawing beneath the bridge and up near the scroll. Rarely evoking his characteristic circular breathing, Parker stuck to smears and reed bites, at points making two complementary trills to be audible. Although both played solo interludes, a characteristic connection appeared near the end as abrasive reed shrieks and frenetic string pumps settled into rapt coordination.

Synchronization was also much in evidence during the Favre-Blaser concert. Using sticks, brushes, mallets, and even curved bean pods to produce rhythms that contrasted or rumbled alongside the trombonist’s slide actions, the percussionist exudes a sense of relaxed swing no matter the tempo. It often seemed as if an invisible bassist was present as well. Eschewing melody shards and comfortable with a variety of mutes, Blaser intelligently uses silences to emulate the drummer’s pacing. Using lip pressure he produced tandem multiphonics; he sticks to breakneck boppy lines, moderated tremolo swing with the occasional plunger growls for emphasis. The two are separate enough in their playing to underline each player’s skills, but cohesive enough in their playing to come to many happy conclusions.

It was sets like this which emphasize the festival’s strengths. Unabashedly European, Jazz Brugge, takes place every second year, 88 kilometres northwest of Brussels. Meaningfully, it always provides a well-composed illustration of advanced continental improv at that juncture.

--For New York City Jazz Record November 2012

November 6, 2012

Ozone featuring Miklós Lukács

This is C'est la Vie
BMC Records BMCCD163

Augustí Fernández/Barry Guy/Ramón López

Morning Glory

Maya Records MCD 1001

Undivided

The Passion

Multikulti MPI 011

Nils Ostendorf/Philip Zoubek/Philippe Lauzier

Subsurface

Schraum Records 11

Something in the Air: Global Combos

By Ken Waxman

Globalization, mass communication and travel have actually created certain situations where the standardization of everything from hamburger patties to drum beats can be experienced no matter where in the world a person is situated. Increased mobility also, for instance, allows like-minded musicians in different locations to exchange thoughts and ideas. Because of this, the 21st Century has seen the instigation of literal global ensembles; musicians who work together regularly but live in different cities, countries or even continents.

This situation is particularly pronounced among improvised musicians, since many players already travel far to find like-minded associates. One top-flight instance of this captured on Morning Glory Maya Records MCD 1001 by the trio of Augustí Fernández Barry Guy Ramón López. Although listening to the sensitive cooperation exhibited on the two CDS which make up this outstanding essay in the trio form would suggest that the three are inseparable, it’s not so. Pianist Fernández lives in Barcelona, bassist Guy in Switzerland and drummer López in Paris. The trio functions among other commitments. Here material is divided among group compositions and those written by the pianist or the bassist. Prime example of López’s sensitive accompaniment occurs on Pepetuum Mobile where his press rolls back the pianist’s kinetic pitter-patter and tremolo chording which evolves in double counterpoint with Guy’s dobro-like twangs or bow taps against his instrument’s wood. Tracks such as A Sudden Appearance confirm the trio’s atonality, encompassing Fernández’s outlined single notes, the bassist’s screeching sul ponticello sprawls and López’s rat-tat-tats. Other pieces such as The Magical Chorus and most of the second CD, recorded live in a New York club reflect the standard piano trio, with splashes of pianistic color perfectly matched with vibrating cymbals, bowed strings or staccato plucks that presage cascading keyboard runs. A tune such as Fernández’s “Aurora”, suggests an Iberian take on Hispanic rhythms, with the tremolo patterns revealing many keyboard notes in rapid succession, yet with the line stretched enough to keep the impressionistic narrative chromatic. Guy’s contrapuntal retort features scrapped and stropped strings while the percussion undertow is mostly rim shots and the timbres involved with crushing crisp paper.

A similarly impressive global quartet is made up of Polish woodwind player Waclaw Zimpel, Ukrainian bassist Mark Tokar, German drummer Klaus Kugel and American expatriate in France, pianist Bobby Few. Undivided The Passion Multikulti MPI 011 is literally that, a modern reimaging of Christ’s suffering and death. Lacking vocals or religious motifs, the seven-part suite is not so much overtly spiritual as musically superlative. A veteran of playing in churches, nightclubs and with spiritual jazz avatar Albert Ayler, Few takes naturally to the theme and throughout lets his frenetic chording and dynamic voicing create fantasias of their own, as clustered notes cascade like waterfalls or singular timbres are starkly outlined. Kugel’s steady clanks and cogwheel ratcheting is added to regular cymbal splashes as well as drum drags and ruffs for versatile percussion backup. Tokar’s perfectly balanced string slaps are mostly in the background, except when used to mark theme variations and transitions. Each, whether it’s with two-fisted piano clusters, spiccato runs or door-knocking thumps cleanly intersects with Zimpel, who is equally expressive on clarinet, bass clarinet and tarogato. Appropriately intense, Way of the Cross/Crucifixion/Death finds the reedist involved with pressurized glossolalia, reed bites and emotional split tones as his solo varies from stopped silences to squeakily speaking in tongues. Around him in a broken-octave concord are buzzing bass lines, vibrating drum tops and gospel-inflected processional chords from the pianist.

One important ingredient in Zimpel’s woodwind cornocopia is the unique timbres of the tarogato, Hungarian-invented saxophone cousin. Although French reedist Christophe Monniott doesn’t play it on This is C’est La Vie, the newest CD by his Paris-Budapest band Ozone BMCCD163, includes sounds from the equally indigenous cimbalom or multi-string hammered board zither, played by Miklós Lukács to those created by fellow Hungarians, keyboardist Emil Spányi and percussionist Joe Quitzke. Ozone’s CD is notable in its mixture of electronics and inclusion of jazz standards such as Poinciana and Sophisticated Lady. With Monniott on low-pitched baritone saxophone then latter is treated uniquely as his smeary split tones and squeals brush up against the reverberating arpeggios and string pops from Lukács. In contrast, Poinciana is backed into with keyboard splatters and signal-processed lines as the double-time treatment eventually encompasses Spányi’s multi-fingered syncopated runs and Monniott’s tongue vibrato on alto saxophone, ending with vocoder modulations from the saxman and portamento runs from the piano. More intriguingly, tracks such as the title tune welcome all influences. Here Monniott’s high-pitched, corkscrew-like vibrations operate alongside Lukács’ twanging harp-like arpeggios played andante and staccato, backed by cymbal splashes and superfast piano comping.

Canadians are also involved in trans-border cooperation as demonstrated by Subsurface Schraum Records 11, by the trio of Montreal-based bass clarinetist and alto saxophonist Philippe Lauzier, and two Germans, Berlin trumpeter Nils Ostendorf and Philip Zoubek from Köln on prepared piano. Here instrumentalist’s extended textures create a soundscape of buzzed and granular modulations as if electronics are involved. They aren’t. Instead multiphonics arise from the piano’s stopped and striated strings, the reedist’s flat-line or pressurized vibrato and grace note flourishes from the trumpeter. On a track such as Spectral Radiance, Zoubek’s clipped and clanking chords are mixed with string pops that add wooden tones from then piano’s action, building up to a rough, broken-chord concordance with bubbling and buzzing staccato lines from the horns. In comparison, an interlude like Calm City lives up to its name as the pianist’s barely audible key strummed accompanies Ostendorf’s carefully shaped grace notes, as Lauzier’s extended puffs gradually swell in volume.

Unlike economic or political globalization, musical globalization is more benign. These sessions demonstrate the outstanding results when free-thinking musicians based in different locations are able to regularly create together.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #5

February 7, 2011

A close look at Hungarian Improvisation

Four Different Strategies
By Ken Waxman

Mihály Borbély Quartet

Meselia Hill

Budapest Music Center Records

Béla Szakcsi Lakatos/Miklós Lukács

Check it out, Igor

Budapest Music Center Records

Tony Lakatos

Gypsy Colours

Skip Records

La Campagnie des Musiques à Ouïr

La Manivelle Magyare

Budapest Music Center Records

Closest of all Eastern Block countries to the West during the Cold War because of its near-free market, so-called goulash communism, the past decade has brought more capitalist expansion in all fields – including music – to Hungary.

Distinctive local improv still exists however, exemplified by these CDs by some of the country’s most accomplished jazzers. Coincidentally nearly every one features improvisation that incorporates such traditional instruments as the cimbalom or hammered board zither; Roma-style violin; and woodwinds such as the wooden saxophone-like tárogató and tenor-pitched or deep-bass folk flutes like the kaval and the fujara. Additionally the players blend the freedom of jazz-improv with indigenous Hungarian musics that include Roma plaints, Klezmer rhythms, and a classical tradition that encompasses major so-called serious composers from Ferenc Liszt to Béla Bartók.

Not that the players are musically xenophobic. Mainstream tenor saxophonist Tony Lakatos, whose Gypsy Colours CD tries to recapture his Roma roots now lives in Frankfurt, Germany. Pianist Béla Szakcsi Lakatos was for a longtime associated with the American fusion band Special EFX and has played with everyone from Frank Zappa to drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith. Guitarist Gábor Gadó, featured on the French-Hungarian La Manivelle Magyare, has lived on-and-off in France since 1995, and elsewhere heads an otherwise all-French quartet.

Still, there is continuity among the discs. Versatile keyboardist Szakcsi Lakatos plays different roles on three of these four CDs, while Miklós Lukács, 30 years his junior – a second generation cimbalom player, who has played Liszt as well as gypsy music –

is featured on three CDs, two that also include Szakcsi Lakatos in the ensemble.

Fascinating in its minimalist mixture of Hungarian folk and high classical sounds, Check it out, Igor, a Szakcsi Lakatos-Lukács duet, sometimes floats on romantic impressionism like one of those Bill Evans-Jim Hall guitar-piano collaborations. Elsewhere the folksy string-based polyharmonies predominate with the pianist and cimbalom player’s picking either resembling those produced by a bluegrass duo, or is more freely percussive, referencing drummer Max Roach’s meeting with pianist Cecil Taylor.

Although Szakcsi Lakatos is known as the player who first popularized fusion in Hungary, he’s been a committed jazzman since he was recognized for his talents at the 1970 Montreux Jazz Festival. Here, using both the keys and the piano’s internal strings, he showcases flashy octave runs and low-frequency chording with the same aplomb as he outputs rolling walking bass lines and Magyar-styled nursery rhyme patterns.

Chasing one another like a cat and mouse, Lukács’ claw-hammer-like slurred picking and the pianist’s harmonic licks meld in splayed vibrations, exposing the overtones as well as the initial notes. At points each could individually be playing a tenor banjo or a steel guitar. Double-timed and melodious, the call-and-response sections of keyboard wandering and single-string response can be as folksy as blues guitarist Scrapper Blackwell’s work with pianist Leroy Carr in the 1930s or as sophisticated as that of Hall and Evans.

Still, the Roach-Taylor resemblance is particularly apt on the title tune after Lukács extracts sitar-like textures from his instrument. Later steady hammering develops into polyrhythmic patterns as Szakcsi Lakatos introduces sprightly Chopinesque circular voicing, then slurred fingering from both players extend the melodies in double counterpoint. When the pace slackens somewhat, the two exit in style with “Gypsy dance à la espagnole” as the zitherist’s single-string snaps meet ragtime-like cascading piano syncopation. As the cimbalom picks out the melody with the timbres of a metallic comb, walking bass reverb from the pianist, offers opposing, gentler timbres, until the two combine polyphonically at the end.

Lukács also adds his cimbalom talents to eight of the 10 tracks on reed man Mihály Borbély’s Meselia Hill. Borbély explains that this hill with a Serbian name near his hometown “village inhabited by Hungarians, Serbs, Slovaks, Germans and Gypsies” would tell tales of “neighbours who, for centuries, have lived together, fought together, worked together, have shared their worries and had fun together.” Besides utilizing the indigenous folk zither, the reedist expands his band’s textures with the Orientlized fiddling of Zoltán Lantos, and by soloing on the tárogató, kaval, and fujara as well as his usual soprano, alto and tenor saxophones. For additional colors, Borbély adds mainstream pianist Gábor Cseke of the Budapest Jazz Orchestra and folk/jazz drummer István Baló to make up the rhythm section along with his regular bassist, Balázs Horváth.

Throbbing cimbalom strokes and sliding slurs from Borbély’s folkloric reeds are the first sounds heard on Meselia Hill, with subsequent tracks developed with a group strategy. With the saxophone exposing snake-charmer tones and Klezmer riffs as well as straight-ahead tones, Baló often bounces and ruffs, while Cseke comps in an understated freebop style. Alternating these group tracks with one-on-one interface with Lukács, the woodwind player contrasts or complements the zitherist’s wooden slaps and thumping, chromatic runs with echoing multiphonics from the tárogató or buzzing overblowing with fripple blockage from the kaval or the fujara.

In larger group situations, such as the title track, the mixing doesn’t always take, as when the woodwind player’s shepherd-in-the-field trills and clinking cimbalom backing is almost buried under a fantasia of arpeggios from Cseke, who comes on like a Magyar Keith Jarrett. More descriptive are “Triptych” and “Bear Dance”.

On the first, mallet-driven rhythms from Baló help integrate Lukács’ flat-picked fills with piano harmonies and soprano saxophone chirps. When Cseke’s block chording gives way to modal overtones, the musical resemblance is to a McCoy Tyner trio outing. Finally Borbély’s near-abstract, split tones and droning, low-pitched double bass resonation introduces a meld of Middle Eastern-style sax lines, piano fills, bowed bass lines and resonating waveform strokes from the cimbalom.

Featuring all six players, “Bear Dance” is even more textured and exotic, a reminder that the Arab expansion into Europe 600-odd years ago included parts of modern-day Hungary. Here the drummer and bassist’s patterning is linked timbres from the percussive Persian zarb and kamancha or spiked fiddle. Similarly Borbély’s sluicing reed improv is close cousin to what you’d hear from the Turkish mizmar. Ironically though, the fleet-fingered vibrations and echoing scrapes could only come from a cimbalom. Eventually, cowbell smacks and Horvath’s double stopping define this melding of Maghreb and Magyar multiphonics.

If only Gypsy Colours mixed its influences as well as others are melded on this session.

Although he makes a point of his use of Roma folksongs, former Budapest native, Lakatos seems to be far from his roots. The tenor and soprano saxophonist, who has recorded with the likes of American vibraphonist David Friedman and Dutch keyboardist Jasper Van’t Hoff, is a journeyman player. His previous CD was a tribute to songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, and there are points here when Lakatos’ playing is reminiscent of the time singer-guitarist Josh White made an album with harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II. The contrast between the bluesman Williamson still was, and the mannered folk singer White had become was more than obvious. Lakatos makes a similar mistake here by hosting unreconstructed Roma players.

He further weakens his case by playing syrupy soprano saxophone on many of the tracks; leaving the violin parts to his brother, classical violinist Roby Lakatos; and recording Django Reinhardt tunes with only the finger-style nylon guitar of Ferenc Snetberger backing him. Despite the saxman’s smooth, romantic feel, Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz scored higher in that department without ever referencing the Roma.

Pointing out that “all the musicians involved … come from old Hungarian gypsy families” the CD features five players with the Lakatos surname, plus two each from the Orban and Rostas families. Unfortunately again, one of the Rostas is Monika, a lyric soprano, whose two vocal numbers appear to have migrated from Brazil not Hungary. Here, percussionist Kornel Horvath lays into the claves and marimba, drummer Andras Lakatos plays a shuffle rhythm and the sax line could slip into a Special EFX session.

However to supply some authentic firepower pianist Szakcsi Lakatos is present as is cimbalom player Lukács. Still, with even the saxman’s salute to vibist Friedman, “Mr. Fried”, more of a foot-patter than a foot tapper, it takes a lot to rouse this crew from a laid-back revel. Bassist Gyögy Oban does prove himself a competent walker and the pianist contributes some standard jazzy fills.

Nonetheless, Szakcsi Lakatos’ mainstream/fusion leanings weaken “O.C.” one of the better tunes. Named for a slang Roma expression, but linked to early Ornette Coleman, Lakatos’ tenor saxophone is properly double-timed and free, but the pianist’s showy glissandi upset the piece’s folkloric simplicity.

“Crying Way from India”, is one of the few memorable part-jazz/part-Roma compositions here. It features the saxman’s adaptation of a classic melody, a walking bass line, drum ratamacues and sparking fills from the pianist. Blending gypsy melancholy and a blues base, the saxophonist uses a wide, vibrato – and what sounds like a quote from “Nature Boy” – to suggest his dual identity.

Written by Lakatos, like almost all the originals, “East of the Moon”, is a Klezmer melody with double-timed guitar strums, frailing chromatic runs from the cimbalom, col legno thumps from all the string players and rumbling percussion. Even more impressive, the saxman’s highly rhythmic “Bebop Csardas” makes violinist Lakatos swing, uses Csaba Rostas’ Roma “mouth bass” in double counterpoint with the saxophonist – a folkloric appropriation of Eddie Jefferson accompanied by James Moody – and introduces bebop stop time. While his heart is in the right place, saxophonist Lakatos may be further away from Hungarian culture than he imagines.

An antidote to this is La Manivelle Magyare, loosely translated as “hearing Hungarian”, by a band whose name also loosely translates as “The Provincial Campaign for Music Worth Hearing”.

Related to more theatrical bands from the Netherlands and Italy – not to mention French musette – three musicians are Hungarian, three French. On the Eastern European side are Szakcsi Lakatos again, violinist Balázs Bujtor, a member of the improvising RTQ String Quartet, and award-winning guitarist Gadó, who often plays with locals like Szakcsi Lakatos as well as with his own quartet.

Campagnie des Musiques à Ouïr was founded in Rouen in 1995 by Christophe Monniot, who on La Manivelle Magyare plays alto, baritone and sopranino saxophones, effects, and sings; plus Denis Charolles, whose instruments here are trombone, keyboards, percussion, clarion, friendly chirping, watering-can, gravel and anything that can be struck {!]. Monniot has worked with Antoine Hervé’s big band and drummer Daniel Humair, while Charolles employers have ranged from legendary French saxophonist Michel Portal to guitarist Marc Ducret. Member of the Axone Saxophone Quartet, Brittany-born Frederic Gastard here plays tenor, and soprano saxophones, bass, imaginary monophonic, fur and giant siphon [!?!].

Unlike saxophonist Lakatos’ labored attempted at identity music, Gadó, and Szakcsi Lakatos take their Hungarian-ness for granted; it’s merely internalized not displayed. For instance the guitarist’s “Winnie the Pooh joins Europe” parts I and II, which introduce and sum up the program are filled with call-and-response vamps from saxes and strings, pitter-patter piano pulses, rock-like guitar reverb and tempo-changing drum rolls. With its layered polyphony “Part I” features Bujtor plucking his fiddle like a bluegrass mandolin and repeated bogus endings that reach a vaudevillian climax. Less than half the length, “Part II” has stop-time rhythm which showcases multiphonic horn lines, staccato violin runs, and buzzing distortion from guitar pedals. As it zooms to its climax, splinters of Austro-Hungarian marches, Roma laments and Lisztian classicism appear.

The pianist’s aptly titled “Distortion” is all flashing dynamics from Szakcsi Lakatos, ruffling bowed strings plus honks and snorts from Monniot’s baritone. Jerky, buoyant tenor saxophone lines and chromatic trombone burrs give the other Frenchmen something to do as the rock-style hooks waft the piece to a contrapuntal conclusion.

Monniot, who contributes three of his own compositions, appears to be firmly in the POMO school. He mixes Gadó’s country-style picking, resonating wooden claves and door-knocking percussion on one piece with Hungarian-flavored fiddle arpeggios, tap-dance bass rhythms from Gastard and contrapuntal reed honking.

With its punning title, “Have you met mystic?” has one of Gadó’s best solos, as his slurred fingering outlines both the notes and their defined vibrations. When the harmonies open up, the strings approach czardas rhythm. Thus the tune links those dance beats with unison, R&B-like horn riffs, and concludes with whooshing jettes from Bujtor and dynamic arpeggios from Szakcsi Lakatos.

Defining the identity of Hungarian improv seems best done within the country, as these CD demonstrate. Unless, that is you take the indigenous ingredients and spice it up with seasoning from elsewhere to turn the whole thing into a nourishing musical goulash.

For One Final Note March 27, 2006

April 1, 2006