Jazzdor, based in Strasbourg, fosters a spirit of collaboration and co-operation across national boundaries. In addition to its annual ‘home’ festival, it added Berlin more than 15 years ago. The Budapest festival is a relatively new addition, run in partnership with BMC – an organisation which pairs live music at the Opus Jazz Club with a cosmopolitan recording programme for its label. I attended the second half of the festival.
Hungary’s geographical position makes it a real bridge between different cultures. I recall that the British group 3 Mustaphas 3, popular in the early 90s, had pretended that the musical Mustapha brothers were from an imaginary Hungarian town, Szegerely. Thus they could merge different musical and cultural approaches from the different ethnic groups which passed across the Hungarian plain.
This seemed to be reflected most openly by the second set on the Saturday: a blending of North African gnawa and Hungarian folk by the charismatic Tariqa, a guembri, percussion oud player who has lived in Hungary for 25 years. He is fully aware of how to fuse the dance musics of Morocco and Hungary. The musicians are at the top of their game,with trumpeter Ferenc Kovács doubling violin and Péter Bede playing saxophone and Hungarian recorder. If the tables and chairs had been removed, we’d all have been dancing.
Nevertheless the group which expressed the positive creative fruit of co-operation completely was the “Six Migrant Pieces” by Christophe Monniot which ended the first night. Monniot is a positive thoughtful spirit in French jazz, with a disparate open-mindedness. Six Migrant Pieces brings together a stellar lineup of musicians from diverse French and Belgian backgrounds, such as Aymeric Avice on trumpet, French superstar bassist Bruno Chevillon and Franck Vaillant on drums. The music is based on texts by the likes of Martin Luther King, and encourages the musicians to improvise in an interactive manner, built from long angular melodies. It also pays thoughtful tribute to some of Monniot’s musical heroes including Weather Report, Olivier Messaien and Allan Holdsworth. The musicians are entrusted with a lot of space such that solos by guitarist David Chevallier, reminiscent at times of Derek Bailey, and from the keyboards of Jozef Dumoulin particularly linger in the memory.
Other performers over the two nights involved cross-cultural and national partnerships too. The opening act before Monniot had been ‘Reverse Winchester’, on the first night. Mike Ladd performed with acoustic guitarist Mathieu Sourisseau who plays a classic Sixties Gibson. He’s a descriptive realist, deploying different vocal techniques from song to song including spoken word, ‘sprechgesang’ and purer singing with a Tom Waitsian charisma, Ladd was able to bring over a very poignant series of lyrics, many of which draw on his own experience of love and longing but also commenting on the state of the USA today. Sourisseau’s guitar acts as a springboard for, and a boost to the impact of, the poetry. Conscious of his heritage, Ladd has spent many years living in Paris and perhaps that gave an objectivity to his comments about the US.
The second night started with a deeply thoughtful performance of tenor saxophonist Sylvain Cathala’s trio working with oud player/singer Kamilya Jubran, originally from Palestine. A collaboration that goes back nearly a decade, they played a mix of tunes, firstly of arrangements of Jubran’s songs, or tunes by Cathala where Jubran set lyrics. It builds from when they started working together. Then there was new work jointly composed which seemed less plaintive. Cathala was a sensitive counterpart to Jubran, enhancing her material and intertwining with her voice while never overpowering. It was at times a very poignant atmosphere, as Jubran pointed out that many of the songs were inspired by the never-ceasing conflicts that continue in the Near East. Sarah Murcia on bass provided a dynamic counterpoint of her own throughout as well as sometimes joining in on the melody. It gave a great momentum to the music, and also space for Christophe Lavergne on drums to add extra sonic colour.
Congratulations to Philippe Ochem and Tamás Bognár on having created a stimulating festival, which confirms how much international cultural perspectives can stimulate. Although Ochem is now retiring from his role as artistic director of Jazzdor, it is good to know that the festival is confirmed for 2026. And he has set an approach which surely must be continued.
