The Brooklyn Rail

Jazzfest Budapest is relatively young, this being its fourth edition. Blessed with a marathon duration, plus a sprawl of citywide venues in the style of jazz long-runners in London, Copenhagen, and Cologne, its musical outlook spans styles and types from mainline ticket-sellers to underground extremists. This is mostly an opportunity for delving into the Hungarian scene, but there are also large-scale concerts by Dhafer Youssef, Nduduzo Makhathini, and the e.s.t. thirtieth anniversary celebration ensemble. This is a hardcore jazz festival, with no bland pop or neo-soul outfits welcomed.

Jazzfest Budapest appears to be a virtual one-man operation, with photographer Attila Kleb also finding time to organize everything else. His tactic seems to be that, without much state funding and a lack of high volunteer numbers found at other festivals, he delegates most of the technical responsibilities to the participating venues and their pre-existing infrastructures. With as many as five gigs each evening, or two on the slower nights, this is a mammoth festival, beginning with quantity, but continuing with quality.

The Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil appeared at the Eiffel Műhelyház, one of the festival’s two large concert halls (with an actual steam-train languishing in its foyer), formerly the Northern Railway Maintenance And Engineering Works from 1886, beginning its new life in 2020. Abou-Khalil is accompanied by his violin, cello, and percussion compadres; a committed joker, but his patter being contrasted with the complicated onrush of his music, joyous but definitely not lightweight. The sweeping strings envelop him, with Polish violinist Mateusz Smoczynski repeatedly escalating in soloing prowess. The themes frequently involve a head-rush ecstasy of expression, with intensely interlocking structures, the leader picking out detailed solo figures on oud. The group is driven hard by drummer and percussionist Jarrod Cagwin, who manages to reconcile propellant thunder with airy frame-drum feathering.

On the smaller side of the street, there’s the Jedermann Café, used repeatedly during the festival as a late night hang, one often seeping into a vivid jam session state. While the city’s Opus Jazz Club invokes an NYC aura, with pale wood and food service, Jedermann is closer to Smalls in its vibrations, although sitting on street-level, and serving light fodder. The Grencsó 4 explore free-form edges, led by the robust veteran saxophonist István Grencsó and his weathered crew of adventurers, Róbert Benkő (bass) and Miklós Szilveszter (drums). They pull across a rich, woodsome acoustic canopy (Jedermann has fabulous sonics, bands discreetly amplified), formulating an abstracted roughness, a free circulation with tensile bass-hits and jostling drums. Sable bowing emerges from the bass, making inky strokes and tar-sweeps, closely merged with Grencsó’s tenor softness, before a conclusion of increasing density, pace and toughness. Harmonic overblowing leads a clambering, halting, steampunk mechanoid honk, as the trio’s second set obliterates further limits.

Another completely different scene was revealed at Fonó, across the Danube. It’s a venue that prioritizes traditional Hungarian folk dancing, as well as being open to global ethno styles. The Ektar Instrumental Quintet (a sextet on this night) merges jazz and folk, gradually building its line-up during the first set, then featuring the full complement for the second. Bassist Benkő was also playing here, illustrating the comparative intimacy of the Budapest scene. This group of (mostly) elders enjoys a vibrant shifting of sonic characters, led by Szabolcs Szőke’s gadulka (a Bulgarian bowed lyre-like string instrument), aided by alto saxophone and cajón, bright-toned and folksy. Then, out came the largest mbira ever witnessed, as big as a coffee table, with soprano saxophone, and now, an acoustic guitarist. All of this swapping doesn’t distract so much as enhance the experience, devoted to the musical end-state. When the second set adds bass and drums, the emphasis shifts to jazz improvisation, with just a floor tom, two cymbals, and a small table of tiny implements.

In another musician’s recurrence, drummer Szilveszter also played at Lumen the next night, joining the visiting reedsman Tobias Delius (surprisingly English, but mostly identified with Germany and the Netherlands). An exceptional trio was completed by bassist Péter Ajtai. Lumen is an alternative theater, well set up for music events, with an almost in-the-round situation. It’s another joint with impressive acoustics. Ajtai’s bass becomes a formless, thrumming mass, Szilveszter’s drums pack violence, with blows that wound, contrasting with the embraceable Delius tone, mellow amidst this stormy ramble. His classicist clarinet has a sleek glassiness, emitting tiny throttle-glots. Szilveszter makes shock-strikes, using a mere rag-of-cloth, but sounding like a bag of stones. Delius responds in kind, with ultra-treble squawks and shrieks, as the audience is riveted in shock. Ajtai is a bass-hugger, head down, body pressed seamlessly, while Szilveszter is in constant imaginative motion, calling up new ideas for sonic diversity, rolling mercilessly onwards, under the linear probing of tenor and bass, cosseted by the theater’s canopy-covering of acoustic baffles.

Meanwhile, should we boycott authoritarian lands? Should we begin with Hungary, or the United States of America? If we avoid all questionable regimes, where could we possibly land our planes? The Hungarian political stratosphere represents a meathook in the thigh of the European Union, but on the cosmopolitan streets of Budapest, human movements are just as malleable and variable as in most other metropolises. But not for long? Engaging with musicians, promoters, club staff and random beings, during a jazz festival, these are not the evil-voters, these are the same sorts of characters that we might find in Kraków, Brussels, Tallinn, or London, hanging out without limits. So yes, we will still visit Budapest, until we can no longer visit New York City.