alisonboston.com

One of these days I’ll update this site and put an audio widget on it! Until then, you have to go to DigitALIS to hear my latest track.
It’s about my father posted the day before his birthdate.
The track is a remix of a performance of the poem/song Easier Said recorded live […]

November 9
Jazz Jam Session (socios de AMJM y Societat de Blues), Sala Monasterio, Barcelona. Keep the Music Alive improv with Andre Sumelius (drums) , Raynald Colum and Auden (trumpet), Alexis Leaden (percussion) , Alexi Tuomarila (piano), Marko Lohikari (bass).
November 8
Wolly VonHaus Birthday Fiesta, Crossroads, Terrassa. Fever, Vocal Improv, When the Music’s Over, Let the […]

September 29
…with Llibert Fortuny at WTF

WTF, Jamboree Jazz Club, Barcelona - Too Crazy to Dance and Fever vocal improvisation with Adriano Galiante (vocals), Aurelio Santos (Beat Box), Llibert Fortuny (saxophone), Raul del Moral (guitar), Matias Miguez (bass), Dani (drums), and Antonio Torres and others as the improvisation advanced…who was the woman playing keyboards? I […]

October 6

WTF, Jamboree Jazz Club, Barcelona - Tell Me that you Love Me - vocal improv and with Menorca (vocals), Aurelio Santos (Beat Box), Pablo Schvarzman (Argentina, synthesizer), Michel Morales (guitar), Matias Miguez (bass), ??? (drums).
This was a vocal improv following Sandra Ortega and Paula Domingues who introduced the theme: “Tell me one more thing, […]

October 13

Photo by Davidarnoldiblogspot.com
WTF, Jamboree Jazz Club, Barcelona - Musical Universe, vocal improv and with Aurelio Santos (Beat Box), Pablo Schvarzman (Argentina, synthesizer), Raul del Moral and Michel Morales (BCN, guitars), Martin (Argentina, bass), Mariana (Argentina, piano) Antonio Torres (Huelva, drums)

…90% of the singing page with a chronological record of jam sessions and open mics , listing all the musicians I played with and what I sang…has vanished!
The moral of this story is, I should be blogging the information rather than making a single page…..and from this day forward that is what I shall […]

An excerpt from a post I wrote in an interesting thread we have going over at Rebecca Fine’s forum:

Tonight I manifested one of the targets set during the course. I sang on stage at the WTF jam at Jamboree. This is famous Barcelona jam session and I have been going there for […]

My latest from Rebecca Fine’s forum
Posted Apr 25, 6:40 PM
“I hold the advancing thought…” what do you think this means?
Wally follows it up with “..so that the impression of increase is given to all…”
..and taken independently from that, what do you think he means by “…the advancing thought…”?
Abraham Hick’s quote of the day suggests a […]

Another post from ‘Rebecca Fine’s forum , this one from a thread on the topic of Marketing is relation to the principles of SOGR:
Sometimes all it takes is doing what you do with so much passion and power that people can’t help but notice!
My mother sent me this quote from […]

The artist of course, is Janis Joplin. People have compared me with her. I was stunned the first time a young American man compared me to her after hearing me sing in Big Bang. He said: “I thought Janis was alive again. I heard you singing this radical anti-war song - […]

More from Rebecca Fine’s forum :
I had a very interesting experience with LL22* today…
I was certainly fired up with my CMI when I approached LL22, and after reading the the LL over , I went back to my CMI, then just seemingly flowed into working on learning a song I had started learning yesterday…
Now […]

Here’s something I posted in a thread on ‘Rebecca Fine’s forum about song lyrics. I refer to two songs, first the song posted by Tig Wallis, and second, my song ‘Techno Toys Blues’ (available on Mole Records, Listening Pearls, credited to Anima Sound System)

that’s when i take
one more step
got no time […]

Click here to read about Barcelona Jam Sessions

I just got my Vodaphone bill for the last month and it’s over €100, and I still haven’t found a place to live. Everybody who posts ads on loquo gives a mobile number and asks you call, and call we must or we’ll never find a place to live. So I call, […]

Same Rain: Different Town
I’ve managed to get to four small music festivals in-between my 6 weeks of work here in England this summer, and each has provided something unique.
At Finsbury Park’s FREE Rise Against Racism Festival earlier in the summer, it was three poets and a French duo (names and photos to follow). A […]

Today is my birthday and I had an email from an old friend, someone I seldom hear from and see even less, but every year he sends me birthday greetings. He asked what I am up, said not much news on the website these days, and he’s right. I write for the monthly […]

So, I put together this event with Phamie whom I met on one of the rare evenings that I left my bike at home and decided to walk. She was playing in the street.

That’s a custom-built, one-of-a-kind harp she’s playing. She’s sponsored by Camac Harps, France.
She plays on this […]

Updated: October 31,scroll down past the pics
Barcelona lights up its waterfront at night…

While on the walking street Las Ramblas, the living statues create a unique theatre…

More pics to come…
…I have just completed the first two legs of the Barcelona triathlon: Accomodation, Work, Residency
The Accomodation and Work were done in reverse order: work then accomodation. […]

Notre Dame Cathedral (the back)
I stopped in Paris for two days and one night on my way to Barcelona. It really is a beautiful city. I think it’s the footpaths along the river and canals that make it so special. You can walk along the river and not hear the traffic above, […]

Barcelona’s biggest festival of the year la Mercé is on this weekend. It started with a parade of dragons in the street, interspersed with marching percussion bands, raising the energy in a way I’ve only imagined!
Each district is represented. I caught photos of 7 dragons before I was swept up by […]

It’s time for me.

Ari Up and Paul Zasky of Dubblestandart on stage at the Bayou Bar
….plus MPG at Fisherman’s Wharf (keep reading….it’s there)
Austria’s Dubblestandart had an instant crowd of dancers last night at the ICA Folk Fest in Victoria. It was great to hear this band live and move to the rhythm. When Ari Up joined […]

Tumi and the Volume delivered a jazz-punk-hip hop fusion that had the Victoria audience hopping on the Bayou Barge at ICA Folkfest. Even the security guards couldn’t stand still. Cute website (cute? hip hop? Yeah really - check it out.) The Volume
Okay, so I have to learn how to […]

Niyaz (USA/Iran) were the closing main stage act last night for the opening of the Victoria ICA Folk Festival. Azam Ali entranced the audience with a sweet voice spinning poetics of Sufi wisdom. Even the most reluctant dancers were on their feet moving to the seductive rhythms of this blend […]

Coming just two weeks after the New Music Voice festival at Open Space, and a week of voice workshops with three different artists, I’ve just immersed myself in yet another workshop. This time a four-day intensive SoundScape residency with Hildegard Westercamp.
This has been an ear-opening experience. I was able to participate […]

So it seems I’ve been sampled. Listening Pearls features Technotoys Blues - which by the way is actually called Techno Toys Blues (three words, not two). They credit Anima Sound System with the song and neglect to mention the writer and vocalist - who just happens to be me - Alison Boston - […]

Two more workshops and one evening of performance later….
Yesterday afternoon I did a Sound Poetry workshop with Paul Dutton. This ended up as a great opportuntity to experiment with my resonating apparatus as just that: a resonanting apparatus.
Paul started the workshop by talking for about 50 minutes about Sound Poetry, including a discussion about overtone […]

I’ve been doing a voice workshop all week with Wende Bartley from Toronto. It’s part of Open Space’s New Music Voice Festival. The results of the voice workshop - a collective creation* by the workshop participants - will be presented tomorrow (Saturday) evening as part of the evening’s line up. Tonight the […]

Ahh, there is a night life in Victoria. There is a scene. It seems. Perhaps it’s just so cold it’s hard to enjoy it? Freezing…brrrr.
Tonight I checked out an art opening at the Martin Batchelor Gallery on Cormorant.
Then I heard punk rocker DOA guitarist, singer, songwriter Joey Keithley at the Lucky […]

Yup, it’s true. I’m back in Canada.
In keeping with this site’s focus on my daily cultural activities, I feel some sort of comment is in order.
Yesterday I took my 88-year-old father for a stroll in his wheelchair through downtown Victoria. A few observations I made (besides how very odd it feels to […]

Well I did it. I went running today through the slums of the 8th district and along the litter ridden Duna to the decadent Palace of Arts…and back. I plugged my nose, and closed my eyes and turned away from the lusty stares as I bounced along.
On the plus side, I ran through, […]

Raday Street Performance Delivers Hope and Forgiveness
HOPE: A collaborative effort
We wanted to perform the piece we have been working on Georgi, Andras and I, before I leave so, we gave a performance last night in a cafe on Raday utca. I was lucky to get a room at the last minute, several places we […]

AppleSeed, a work in progress, Making New Waves Festival workshop performance, February 2006, Photo:Kai Niggemann
View more photos of me in performance here
View more Kai Niggemann photos from the festival here.

Yes, it’s true! The Hungarian band Sziami broke the Guiness Book of World Records for the longest concert given by a band - they played, non-stop for 48 hours!
Non-stop: the rules permitted a 5 minutes break every hour, and if they played more than one hour, non-stop they could accumulate the minutes to take […]

I don’t have much writer in me these days even though I’ve been out and about and have things to write about. In fact, I have a CD that was given to me over a month ago that I haven’t written about. Not because I don’t like it; on the contrary - I love […]

Thank God for parties like the Junior Kelly party at Vienna’s WUK. …whilst in Vienna, I was slipped a promotional copy of Dubblestandart’s soon to be released CD Are You Experienced A double CD, disc 1 being a compilation featuring an assortment of voices, among them Ariup.

…that’s the name of the compilation CD I am on. My first CD. Now I have to join one of those songwriter’s associations so I can get my 50% of 1/13th of proceeds (after all the admin type people have taken their bite) from the sale of the CD. I need a manager […]

I performed at Labyrinth’s monthly reading on Friday night in Vienna to a packed house at Cafe Kafka. My poems were very well received. I performed: Wake up Time, Tribute to Ani, Easier Said and Bad Choices.
Rebecca Fromherz, an opera singer from Vienna, read some of her own poems during […]

Jasch gave me a copy of his CD after his performance last Thursday at Trafo, and I finally got a chance to listen to it Sunday morning at about 4:00 am. It was the perfect background music for a late-night/early-morning talk with one of the other workshop participants. With the exception of some […]

Out walking about last evening, Edith and I bumped into a couple of young Hungarian women who had seen Sunday evening’s performances…They recognised me (yikes) and said how much they liked what I had done.
“What did you like?”
“Your energy.”
“Did you understand it?” I asked.
“I got my understanding.”
“What was that?”
“It was a comedy about […]

Perhaps the most important thing I got from the workshop and the festival is the complexity of creating a meaningful work of art using modern technology. While the workshopping artists were able to realise partially satisfactory technical results, it was the invited artists presenting at the festival who managed to say something with the medium (Max/Msp/Jitter).

The most successful of these isKo Kon nashi, presented on the first evening of the festival (written about in my first post about the festival) and realised by an international collective. Also, last night’s Bridges - presented by quintet.net

In any case, what I love about Max/MSP/Jitter is how straight forward and visual it is. The ability to construct a patch to do what you want, within the capabilities of the software. Jasch compares it to Lego, which I always enjoyed as a kid. But it’s what you can do with a few words, symbols and numbers within all those little boxes that I like so much; and how the numbers give you such precise control over what is happening.

Right. The compilation CD I am on was released last night. There was a CD release party on the a38 ship. I have no idea what any of it is like other than my song, as I have not yet seen, or heard the CD! All I know is that I […]

Yesterday I continued in Jasch’s workshop. He started us off with a little Max/MSP/Jitter demonstration that had me spellbound, mesmerised and completely enraptured. (I’ll let you know if I come up with any more adjectives.)

The Making New Waves Festival continued yesterday with workshops during the day and performances in the evening.
I participated in Swiss artist, Jasch’s Eye and Ear workshop where I teamed with a young musician/composer from Pecs and was introduced to working with the Max/MSP/Jitter software I mention in my preceeding post. We are working […]

Another highlight for me, was the fluid, multi-colored, inkblot-like image created by cycling74.com’s Max/MSP/Jitter software - manipulated at this concert by Austrian composer Johannes Kretz. What started as a simple purple circle, flowed, bounced, and morphed into a constantly evolving psychadelic inkblot. It literally flowed with the music - as the Jitter program is designed to directly respond to the intensity of sound.

Hólyagcirkusz is a company unto itself. The show I saw last Friday - CSŐDCSICSERGŐ - is set in a theater. The characters are all musicans, playing bizarre instruments - conceived by Szőke Szabolcs, based on a dream he had, which arose from his work experience in a music shop where antique instruments were built.

Highlights of the evening for me were delivered by Donarier when he played a frenzied solo on his bass clarinet, and by Blondiau when he closed the concert with a number that started with him playing a solo on flugel horn and trumpet, played simultaneously - one horn on either side of his mouth.

I finally got to hear the Váczi Dániel Trio. last Thursday on the a38 concert boat. Playing together since 2001, the trio serves up the meandering compositions of alto and soprano saxophonist Dániel Váczi. Balázs Horváth on double bass, and Zsolt Sárvári Kovács plays drums, adding colro with a few percussion instruments. […]

New category added today: CD reviews.

One of the things I enjoy most about Budapest and Hungary is the music. I think the country’s geographic location lends itself to a natural fusion of ethnic influences creating a unique Magyr sound.
The world music quartet Ektar is no exception.
I stumbled on them almost by accident, and that is another magical element […]

The more I hear - and see - of Erzsi Kiss the more admiration and respect I have for her as an artist. This is a big step for one who did not like her the first time I heard her. That was during Budapest’s French festival along the banks of the […]

I met this artist from Moldova a couple of weeks ago at Ari Kupsus’* monthly salon concert. Ari was exhibiting Alex’s paintings which are mostly bold, striking colors.
I am intrigued by how Alex’s work will be viewed in a hundred years. I ask what it will say about painting from this […]

I first heard these guys last spring downstairs at the Pesti Est Cafe.
When I heard them at Pesti Est, they were just plain too loud and I couldn’t really appreciate them. When I heard them last night, I was impressed with what a tight, polished sound they have developed in the past 9 […]

Last Saturday, after looking at Tamas Waliczky’s animations at Millenaris, I went to Godor Klub to hear Balaton Club - creation of Hungarian film score composer (Bela Tarr’s films), singer-songwriter, and writer Mihaly Vig.
I had never seen himperform - mostly because anytime they were playing before 2:00AM I was somewhere else.
Balaton Club is a […]

Poet, performer, visual artist, socio-cultural commentator seeks patron. (For Real)
Description:
Provides financial/material support necessary to maintain a comfortably luxurious lifestyle befitting a modern day, mature female artist. Immediate needs include a bright, sunny, warm, quiet place to live and work with a water/green view and ready access to pleasant running trails.
This place should […]

I performed last evening on stage at the a38 as a member of Hungary’s newly formed National Howling Theater (Nemzeti Orditoszinhaz). As the only non-Hungarian in the 8 member choir, I feel like last night’s premier was a kind of rite of passage. I’ve performed on Hungarian stages with Hungarian jazz musicians, […]

I went to hear Steve Coleman at Trafo last Wednesday (Nov. 30th). With the warm up act it was almost four hours long! For this European tour, Steve has invited four Hungarian musicians to join him on stage: Zoltan Lantos (violin), Mihaly Borbely (reeds), Miklos Lucacs (cimbolom) and Gabor Winand (vocals).
We […]

Since first writing this, I’ve thought about both films some more and really, what I’ve written here is quite pathetic, and both films deserve a much deeper discussion.
Wim Wenders/Sam Shepherd ‘Don’t Come Knocking’ has a young man singing with a wonderful voice, and he has an equally vibrant actress playing his girlfriend. d […]

I haven’t posted much in the past couple of weeks. I’ve had a cold and I’ve been thinking. Colds are good for that, don’t you think? They make us hibernate, and with hibernation comes reflection.
I performed my poetry last Saturday evening at a private party. It was great. The […]

In the two years I’ve sat in concerts here in Budapest I’ve heard a lot of technically sound musicians.
Sometimes when I listen to musicians I know they’re connected to the creative center of the universe and when they play, they just open their third eye and go for it. Richard Bona is one […]

As usual, this week’s Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone opens my ears to unbelieveably unique music, but even more so, he brings me another mind-expanding story about a musician. This week he introduces me to Vashti Bunyan - a true blue 60’s hippie singer songwriter - she was even a friend of Donovan […]

listening to the program reminds me of the live show I saw last evening on the Columbus Jazz Boat. Andre Ochodlo and the Jazzish Quintet from Sopot, Poland are nothing like these ‘out there’ musicians. They come from extreme opposites of the musical spectrum. Where Kevin Blechdom (who is really a woman) performs with an outrageously raw energy, accompanied by music that challenges the boundaries of what is music, Andre Ochodlo and his quintet sing and play with absolute precision.

…I went to Kultiplex tonight. Gimmeshot had about 8 MCs on the program and I thought it would be a great way to get to know some of Budapest’s mikers. Besides, Senna - who fronts Kamu - was on the bill and I wanted to hear her in this version. […]

I went to hear Varga Zsuzsa last night on the a38 concert boat. This was the second time I’d heard her with her new band - the Stopsonic - (the first being during Sziget Festival) and I was even more impressed than when I first heard her in her more poppy incarnation […]

One of my favorite spots in Budapest is Nyitott Műhely on Ráth György ut in Buda (just off Alkotas near the Deli railway station).. Since I moved from the first to the eighth district, I don’t get there as often as I’d like to - but I do try to get there at least […]

I am rapping on Anima Sound System’s soon-to-be-released new CD and I need a more visually exciting website.

When I first installed Word Press at the beginning of September, I chose Carol’s Retrospotive as my preferred template, then couldn’t figure out how to install it.
Well, almost two months, and two festivals later - I took the time to read the CPanel manual and work that out and got it installed. Now […]

I’ve just finished a two and a half day theater therapy workshop. I met a lot of beautiful people and shared some intense moments and did not come away unchanged.
The workshop was organised by the European Treatment Centers for Drug Addiction as part of the International Conference on Alcoholism and Addictions. […]

The big surprise of this evening’s BOF concert on the a38 boat was bass player, Darren Taylor. Not an easy task to stand out in a talent-packed, star-studded band, backing up none other than Britain’s energetic saxophone sensation Courtney Pine, but Darren caught my ears with a steady rhythm that thrummed along keeping pace […]

Zoltan Lantos’s Mirrorworld played last night on the Columbus Jazz Boat as part of BOF.
I wrote pages and pages (12 and half) in my note book (19.5X14cm). It really needs editing, but here are my first few words, written during the first few minutes of the concert:
“…it’s a stream of notes
swinging from trees
jumping […]

People are always asking me why I chose Hungary.
Today, as I was searching my files for the poems I’ve written since I came here, I stumbled on one titled Canadiana. It was hidden in a folder called poems that need work. I opened the file and […]

I talked with guitarist-composer Gábor Brezovcsik and drummer András Mohay after Plastic Septet’s concert at Millenaris tonight and I basically said everything to them…
It goes like this:
I wrote two short narratives listening to Plastic Septet tonight. One is a crime story, the other is about a lonely motel. I’ve never […]

…Inspired by the playing of:
Pandit Rajeev Janardan - sitar
Dr. Kamala Shankar - shankar-guitar
Pundlik Krishan Bhagwat - tabla
at Trafo Arts Center, Budapest, Hungary on October 17, 2005-10-17
Part of the Budapest Autumn Festival
now available for reading in PDF format via the Poems page.

What a great publicity stunt! Put a classical music quartet in a subway station. And it worked - both in terms of getting a sold out, standing-room only audience and also in content.
The Accord Quartet delivered a great, relaxing, yet thought-provoking late night concert on the platform of the spotlessly scrubbed […]

Finland’s Kimmo Pohjonen delivered an hour plus long performance this evening on the a38 concert boat as part of Budapest’s Autumn Festival. The program notes said to expect something special, and I was spellbound from start to finish. I usually sit and tap a finger or bob my head in time to […]

Once I got to the off-festival after-party venue on Kazinsky Ut, I discovered that not only was the festival showing films and putting on free concerts, but there was also a multi-media, and sound workshop taking place in the same building - along with a performance from Welsh poet Peter Finch who was last […]

Very masculine, mostly cerebral, yet at times intensely visceral (thanks to the guitar, but also occassionally the voice) and sometimes downright boring, especially in the beginning.
That’s An Index of Metals in a nutshell. Composed by the late Fausto Romitelli, performed by Flemmish Ensemble Ictus, with Georges-Elie Octors […]

Another techno leap accomplished - I think I will go in for the Techno Steeplechase
I managed to get one poem converted to PDF before the thing refused to convert anymore telling me to check my printer or reinstall printer driver. Will probably have to do the latter. I tried closing everything down and […]

His guitar has inspired some of the most beautiful poetry I’ve written here in Hungary. Private Little Gold Mine is one poem from that collection.

I’ve also written about Zoltan Lantos here (do a search) and a link to an article I wrote about him is on my non-fiction links page. (01 November, 2004, 21 String Violin Opens …) Zoltan’s violin has inspired me to write some very unusual nature poetry.

Here’s a few lines from The Perfect Place written by Ann, sung to the music of Baron’s Sunshower:

“…once he said
‘trust me,
see the perfect place for butterflies’,
and in his arms I travelled far,
the heat was real and wonderful.”

…regardless of age and circumstances.
I opened a new category today, and simply called it Being.
I pondered what to call this category, inspired by 101 year old artist Tamás Lossonczy.
After I wrote about him, I thought about my Mother, another amazing artist - who in her forties joined an […]

I can compare his style to Jackson Pollack, or Jean Paul Riopelle and there are paintings in the exhibition that look like conversations with Dali.

So, in true anarchistic style, they had a party and invited everybody to come down to the Gödör Klub - which has its own political cross to bear- and find out what they are all about.

It is hard-core Hungarian chasonnier, with percussion, drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, trumpet and deep, gutteral - almost raspy - vocals.

The Budapest (Őszi) Autumn Festival, dedicated to showcasing avante garde art, has already presold 25% or double the number of tickets than last year.
I haven’t yet gone through the program to choose the events I want to see, but my first cursory glance has zeroed in on a sitar concert at Trafo.
The […]

Went to Joe Zawinul’s Birdland in Vienna last evening, and I was delighted. Joe and his band The Syndicate were playing. I was entranced from start to finish. A truly international group of musicians, the concert fused Zawinul’s music with the traditional native sounds of the individual players.
All the […]

She was wearing low cut jeans, with a belly top and a gold chain around her svelte, young midriff. She was first pawed by one man in a suit, then she was pawed and had her ass squeezed by another man.

she sent Peter a recording of her singing the songs with music put together by different producers. Peter played the recording for his ad-hoc band and they learned the music and after two rehearsals with Pat put on the show.

Moving slowly, yet with determination, Paul Bley came on stage last night at the Festival Theater after a prolonged 45 minute intermission following the performance of his peer, Szabados György.
A long intermission was needed after the intensity of Szabados, who had played an abstract hour-long concert, that culminated with a comical vocal dialogue […]

A couple of week’s ago, I heard Pop Ivan play for the first time. Laszi played his parts from his wheel chair. The band sounded great even though they hadn’t rehearsed since the paralysis.

But my mind wanders back to the thoughtful music of the Oláh-Bacsó-Boisseau Trio and I hanker to hear it again. Their second piece of the evening, an improvisation called Hungarian Sketches conjures deep, mysterious images

Even with the asphyxiating smoke-filled air and the hopelessly inadequate technical - both Kárpáti Dodi’s trumpet and Vázsonyi János sax blowing simultaneously through one microphone, amped through a very unflattering speaker - I was hooked by the sound and had to tear myself away to continue to the next concert.

Not only did he wow me with that one song thrown in at the end of the concert he played with the Csik Gustztáv Trio, but he also tickled my ribs with what he told me is called ‘The Bobby Durham Special’, a tricky little cymbol technique he learned watching Philly Joe Jones (who he told me practiced in his kitchen when he was nine years old) and Max Roach.

I am already suffering from piano burnout at this festival that is focussing on the piano. And it’s only Day 2. And I love the piano! But after an evening of ivory keys, it sure was nice to stumble into Paris Texas coffee house for a late evening taste of Gyárfás István’s […]

The evening finished with the ‘out of tune’ Steinway being wheeled into centre stage and Szakcsi joining van’t Hof to play a duet - van’t Hof on one piano and Szaksci on the ‘out of tune’ Steinway.

…need I say more?
Béla Lakatos Szakcsi and Miklós Lukács started the Budapest Jazz Festival off with three minimalist pieces unlike anything I’ve ever heard either of them play. Although very, very good they were just a little teaser for Jason Moran and The Bandwagon from the States who blew us all […]

The Budapest Jazz Festival starts today. 47 concerts in 15 locations over 5 days. In addition to the late night concerts on Raday utca, there are sessions starting at 11pm today, tomorrow and Friday on the Columbus Jazz Boat, which is the home stage of the Hungarian Society of Jazz Artists
Kornél Horváth […]

The HVB Bank opened its touring exhibition ‘Europe in Art’ last week (Sept. 7) in Budapest.
Some of the strongest works in the exhibition are the photographs. One of my favorites is Ilse Haider’s Venus. When viewed from a distance the goddess’ face commands attention, while close up, the artist’s […]

I was chatting with Lantos Zoltan last evening about the a38 concert. It was the first time he had played with the trio, although he had previously played with the bassist Volkov. Apparently there was one number he was supposed to play with them, but he said: “They were playing so […]

Heard these guys tonight playing with Hungarian violinist Lantos Zoltán on the a38 concert boat. It was an awesome concert. The guitarist lost his glasses a couple of times - they literally flew off his face he was shaking his head so hard in time to the music. Not […]

Another of my favorite listens is Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on BBC’s 6Music.
I cannot express it any better than BBC: “For all things strange and beautiful…The quirky, unusual, weird, and wonderful.”
I especially like to listen to it when I am fed up with hearing my neighbor’s musical choices.

Another of my favorite BBC programs. I’ve heard some great, and rare live sessions on this program - including bassist Henry Grimes.
Check the Jazz on 3 link under the music sidebar to go straight to the BBC Jazz on 3 homepage where you can open the ‘listen again’ radio player.
Listen again […]

I’m an avid BBC ‘listen again’ listener. MIXING IT is a favorite. This week’s program is about the electro acoustic scene in Montreal, where I lived for 5 years.
For some reason, I didn’t get into the music scene when I lived in Montreal. It wasn’t until I came to Hungary […]