alisonboston.com

Budapest’s Trafo House of Contemporary Arts packed in an audience of jazz enthusiasts last evening for the premier concert of a new jazz collective put together by French bass player Sebastien Boisseau and Belgian trumpeter Laurent Blondiau.

The evening started with Matthieu Donarier setting the reeds in his instruments: soprano and tenor sax, clarinet and bass clarinet. He was soon joined on stage by the rest of the players, and things got underway with an opening drum solo from Stefan Pasborg of Copenhagen. Hungarian guitarist Gabor Gado rounded out the group.

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.

In spite of this international collection of top notch players from western Europe, it was guest stars Bela Szakesi Lakatos on keyboards and Miklos Lukacs on cimbolom who brought the whoops and whistles from the appreciative audience.

The collective has just finished five days in the studio recording a CD for release by Budapest’s BMC records, and last night’s concert launched an Eastern European tour.

I can only best describe their sound as a minimalist electroacoustic fusion. Yeah!

I can’t wait to hear the CD due for release in a couple of months.