Jazzdor Strasbourg-Budapest
Festival Jazzdor Strasbourg-Budapest
26-29 March 2025
Budapest, Hungary
Review by Ken Waxman
Photos by Susan O’Connor
Designed to showcase a potpourri of French and Hungarian improvisers, the second Festival Jazzdor Strasbourg-Budapest (FJSB), which took place in the Hungarian capital in late March, became even more international in 2025. It was as if a musical meal of goulash soup and steak-frites had been intensified with some spicy couscous from the Maghreb and additional seasoning from elsewhere.
In fact one of the most entertaining and best-received sets, which like the others took place in BMC’s comfortable Opus night club, was the final one by the Tariqa quintet. The group featured Said Tichiti, who vocalized in Arabic, and played the gembri, a three-stringed bass lute from Morocco’s Gnawa region; plus Ferenc Kovács, who played trumpet, Magyar fiddle and sang in Hungarian, and Péter Bede on alto saxophone and blockflute; with guitarist Ádám Mészáros and drummer András Halmos.
A resident of Hungary for two decades Tichiti’s patter in English and Hungarian underlined the multicultural blend. At points using the Gnawan lute as a double bass, Tichiti intersected with the drummer’s backing thumps to build up to a near-ecstatic groove. Meanwhile, horn vamps and Mészáros’ extended flanges made it seems as if the sounds reflected Stax records as well as the Sahara desert.
That was when Tichiti sang in Berber or Arabic. During other tunes Bede traded his modernist reed riffs for the wooden end-blown fripple, and Kovács put aside his sophisticated triplet-emphasized trumpet solos for simple fiddle stops, and lustily shouted out the equivalent of Hungarian mountain music.
With appropriate foot-tapping pressure from the other players, these interludes escalated to be as rhythmically exciting and mesmerizing as the African chants. Comprehensibly emphasizing percussion beats that came as often from a cowbell as cymbals, the guitarist’s bottleneck-like whines, Kovács’ sophisticated brass portamento or raucous fiddling, blockflute peeps and Tichiti’s Gnawa mantras, this was a rare instance of unselfconscious ethnic fusion, and one which earned Tariqa a hearty encore.
Kovász, the festival’s other featured Hungarian band, opened FJSB’s second evening and was more directly affiliated with contemporary Jazz. Among the hard-blowing freebop and funk phrasing from the group consisting of Gergő Kováts on tenor saxophone, bass clarinet and flute; pianist/synthesizer player Pozsár Máté and bassist Ábel Dénes, percussionist Attila Gyárfás took extended solos on the gardon. A local instrument first known in the the 18th century, the gardon is cello-shaped, with strings and springs that are plucked and beaten with a stick.
The quartet’s cumulative skill was such that each time Gyárfás stood up from his kit, stopped the pulses and rolls he was playing, and strapped on the gardon, its string-slapping and spring throbs fit perfectly alongside the rhythmic timbres coming from piano extensions, pizzicato bass thumps and vibrated saxophone honks.
Closer to Jazz evolution, Máté used synth oscillations to pulse beneath the others’ solos as well as expressing impressionistic chording or relaxed comping. Collating organ-like washes from the synth, reed overblowing and drum backbeats, the band sometimes reached an R&B-like groove. Kováts’ tenor saxophone output however, maintained Jazz links with subtle accents or split tones, while his flute playing squeaked or sighed as needed. Except for those interludes when Dénes spelled Gyárfás on the gardon, and surprisingly produced a more percussive sound, tempo changes from adagio to andante to presto didn’t phase him. Thick, speedy plucks and strident arco thrusts were propelled with the same facility.
Kovász, which translates from the Hungarian as sourdough, was followed that night by Bonbon Flamme, a band whose name in French denotes a small typically chocolate confection filled with sweet liqueur. However the quartet of Corsican cellist Valentin Ceccaldi, French drummer Etienne Ziemniak, Portuguese guitarist Luis Lopes and Belgian keyboardist Fulco Ottervanger, was more focused on the fiery part of the band’s name rather than its sweet innards.
At points working up to a hypnotic exposition, much of the passion came from the cellist’s plucks and stops and the guitarist’s torqued chording. Otherwise the four stuck to the straight and narrow paced by the drummer’s Mylar-tapping or eddying splashes.
Dividing his output between piano and keyboard, Ottervanger’s playing was measured on the first and gliding on the second. He also added vocalization on a couple of tunes. At points using his cello like a walking bass, Ceccaldi centred some improvisations when Lopes attained full guitar-hero pose and was in danger of stretching the tunes beyond cohesion. Other times when interaction threatened to become overly loggy with funereal piano introductions and low-key narratives, the cellist invigorated the program by simultaneously twanging his strings pizzicato and hammering on them with a small mallet.
Joining keyboard pressure, heavy drum ruffs, guitar chording and cello string squeaks, mid-range antiphony and linearity were maintained throughout the set. But there was also a feeling that each player – especially Lopes – was at points holding back.
In fact the most theatrically provocative part of the program was when the quartet reacted to a pre-recorded snippet of a piano playing “The Ragtime Dance”. Spinning the interlude into a distinctive POMO exposition, each player built on the recorded sample. The cellist scraped pressurized jabs from his strings; the guitarist replicated Country Blues runs; and the pianist moved the ragtime tinge a generation forward with some pseudo honky-tonk pacing.
French alto saxophonist Christophe Monniot’s sextet Six Migrant Pieces, which closed FJSB’s second evening, also offered musical links to real-world problems of violence and climate change, exacerbated by forced migration. Without the didactic texts voiced on his eponymously titled CD, the messages were conveyed by the instrumental skills of the saxophonist plus fellow French stalwarts trumpeter Aymeric Avice, bassist Bruno Chevillon and drummer Franck Vaillant as well as Brazilian guitarist Nelson Veras and Belgian keyboardist Jozef Dumoulin.
Carefully arranged for maximum theatrics, the suite began with subtle keyboard clipping from the piano and moderated reed flutters that soon led to harmonized themes bisected at times by portamento trumpet lines and Monniot’s impassioned trilling and tongue-stopped solos. Throughout the subsequent narratives the piano, bass and drums maintained a steady pace, with a few pivots when Vaillant laid into his cowbell. In contrast Veras’ sour string slides and dial-twisting crackles soared cleanly over the proceedings.
When moderately paced lines turned to emphasized bounces and then sped up to presto, there was further scope for variations. At points saxophone and trumpet tones harmonized. Other times Monniot’s elevated lonesome trills were backed by voltage oscillations from Dumoulin’s electric keyboard.
Careful to emphasize hope as well as hostility, certain interludes stood out, as when the pianist created pure swing patterns, Chevillon exquisitely advanced the rhythm without showiness, and the bassist added arco slides.
Echoes of eastern European dances also figured into the performance as did a rugged stinging alto saxophone interlude. Finally as lively guitar riffs and electric piano stutters faded away, Avice marked the climax with a heraldic, but melodic blast.
Another experienced French reedist was featured during the second set of the festival’s opening night at the Opus. This time however, clarinetist/bass clarinetist/tenor saxophonist Louis Sclavis’ India quartet was a new configuration featuring trumpeter Olivier Laisney, pianist Benjamin Moussay, and drummer Christophe Lavergne.
Oddly, while the soon-to-be recorded compositions were imbued with memories of Sclavis’ sojourn in India, there were no overt Hindustani or Carnatic inflections. Then again, Sclavis throughout his career has been more oriented towards imaginary folklore than factual duplication.
Mid-range, the narratives evolved by encompassing understated drumming, slow keyboard runs, trumpet buzzes, and Sclavis switching effortlessly among his reeds for maximum expression. At points he and Laisney worked out connections or challenges, as Moussay’s comping juddered from semi-classical formalism to tough, clenched chording behind them.
The few turns away from this blend found the trumpeter’s open-horn flourishes coming up against reed slurs, as drum pops and keyboard clips lightened the subsequent interface to reflect horizontal balance.
Seeming most comfortable playing bass clarinet, Sclavis’ flutter-tongued cries paired with Laisney’s portamento expositions created some lively interludes. Hard-driving at points with trumpet-reed unison evolution, alongside Moussay’s key stabs, all three always returned to the head before completion.
Moussay performed double duty that evening. With piano and mini-synthesizer, he accompanied the exquisite vocals of fellow Gaul Claudia Solal during the preceding set in a program of her own compositions sung in English.
Midway between recital and revival, Solal’s heartfelt lyrics of love lost and intimacy, replete with intense metaphors, sometimes seemed a little too personal to be expressed in such a space. Moving through suggestions of Jazz, chanson and electro-pop, besides the color and balance the keyboardist provided to the songs, Moussay sometimes added an accompanying voice to her dramatic, rhymed readings.
With the majority of the songs most frequently relating to the French balladic tradition, the only time synthesizer programming was expressed full force was when a pre-recorded chorus made up of a multiples of her own voice was played to simultaneously back up and extend Solal’s live singing.
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There were other performances at the Opus during the four-day festival, but comparing the breadth of music presented only during these highlights demonstrates the strength of the program.
While still in its infancy, it’s apparent that this French-Hungarian and beyond partnership should continue.