Sziget 2007 - Fifth is you

Five for the family, festival, fairs, fulfilling for the flight of our spirit.
In the dark, lying under trees, amidst a pushing crowd, running for shelter
Under concert tents, at the Gypsy Music Stage, dancing on Tinariwen
Eating both our unique Kebabs at the terrace of empty stomachs, full glasses,
We spilled our looks in the pervading light of our moving shadows.

Fifth you came in the corner of my eye, but together and squeezed
Like in a deep Forest, a vast desert of living air, our water poring,
Crowd or Man, a number of you's and me's, connected souls rising
Up with moving swings of drums, turntables, hollow and high voices
Like of E.A.Poe's dungeons I dream of those tents packed with darkness and smiles.

Sziget festival 2007 - Come fourth, swinging between stages

From Jazz to World Music, I find Hungarians (often the same musicians too) busy with the same fusions, at the same time aspiring for more as in any active culture - the boundaries between interpretation and composition are always pushed back by playing. To play music bares its own meaning, but as for all pleasant games, it is one played with others, and specifically for others.
When I find young percussionist Dés András at work with both Szajról Szajra and Balázs Elemér, when I see the same singer at work with the same traditional ensemble and the Rap Band Anima Sound System, when I listen - eyes closed, this time - to the surprising delights of Winand Gábor's voice at work with Hungarian, Classical, and Jazz improvisational Music as well as with Elsa Valle's Cuban ensemble (where he takes on his saxophone), I believe I can only make but one, certainly obvious, comment:
The Music - Circuit in Hungary is certainly extremely active, but nevertheless the profession of Musician is difficult to achieve a sustainable status... That is why I am moved, excited, pleased and delighted at the dynamism of the music-network in Hungary, similarly to that which exists in Brittany, France, except it exports itself better.

I once met a drummer coming back from Scotland with his wife at the airport of Ferihegy. He told me he lives there touring with local jazz bands, or playing for local sessions, but that the musicians there didn't have such an exciting level as in home-town Budapest, where he was going back to meet up with some friends (drummer Balázs Elemér, guitarist Gábor Gado...) - that he was surprised I knew so well.
Networks of musicians evolve through festivals like Sziget, and although Hungarian culture still transcribes a paradoxical nostalgia of its larger territory ("damn that old Versaille story!") - paradox mainly mixed with an often undermining view of 'ex-hungaro' territories in Transylvania, Romania - despite this I believe Hungary does gain from its small size but great cultural heritage.

Connections are alive in a country once torn by the centralization around cities and factories, away from its dynamic 'folk'- culture, from its hearts, but directions which rapidly gave Hungary a lot of influence as 'Platform of the East', and as a consequence of which the voice of Hungarians always sounded louder and stronger against the hard walls of cement of Soviet officials.

Sziget is a revival of this determined culture always pushing further outside the boarders, somewhere between lost territories and voices found again, connected.

The oozing quality of sound, Hungarians swinging between stages.

Manu Dibango & Band

le grand Manu...

Manu came to the Sziget like a great king of Africa, the big bald man and his inimitable smile and deep, deep voice... Those voices that remind us of story-telling when we were tiny and listening to words unveiling landscapes full of soul and colours. The Makossa Crew gives the set the lightness it needs for the festival: An excellent second tenor-saxophone from England, a great pianist/singer from France, a very groovy Bass player from Cameroon, a fusion and fantastic stylish drummer from Cameroon also, a Percussionist from the US, Guitarist from North Africa, and a lovely young vocalist on the backing-vocals.
Somehow, Manu knows his team perfectly, and plays around the whole stage, eventually reducing the chances of getting a 'clishé'-shot of him somewhere along the line, at some point during the lion's dance. The king of Yaoundé sounds so fresh and in form it's hard to believe he's just celebrated his 72nd Birthday!
A bit of rain raises an umbrella in front of me, but I still keep on enjoying what I dream of being Yaoundé's dance-floor hymns. The nostalgia behind the deep voice is one of simple pleasure, it is just there, a full presence surrounding my eagerness...
I feel like a goat somewhere between Morocco and and the forests of Niger - enjoying the taste of Hungarian rain dropping down my neck while the crowd enjoys a careful, calm, and deep swing from side to side.

Sziget 2007 - Third came the sun

God might have said otherwise...
But in the Sziget, one speaks a whole different language, thoughts go as far as the origin of man. No architectural research is undertaken (how stupid would they look), but as most festivals aim to be, it's a platform for reconsideration, a kind of "ON ARRETE TOUT!" (with reference to L'AN01 by Doillon and Gébé). Should I mention the false-marriages? ... Well okay... Or did I sell the story too soon? hmm maybe. So at the Sziget, you can marry for.. Why do people marry anyway? ... Well that's why people do it in the Sziget I guess, to reconsider this, to think about it.. No stop it, I believe it's just to mess around. Let's keep a bit of irony in our every-day practice! I'll stick to this conclusion.
God might have decided otherwise...
But third came the sun, third came dry ground, where people started to manifest their desires of change, where there would poor in a desert of ideas a fusion of singing, shouting, and loud banging! No, even the sun wasn't on his own. So people used the sun, and he made them think, suffer, stick together, run for shelter. The sweet perfume of the stinging birds of light.
God might have been a man after all.
Lazy bugger...

Sziget 2007 - Second, the music...

Our program has been the following, struggling to get free-time from 6p.m. to 1a.m. (which was damn lucky in the first place):
Thursday the 9th of August:
Besh o Drom
Tinariwen
Cesaria Evora
(all the following at the World Music stage)
Mike Stern Band
(Jazz Stage)
Before mentioning the music, it's well worth mentioning the quality of selection I find in Sziget's organisation. The World Music category respects its wide and varied choice of 'popular roots music' - bands changing every year, whereas it isn't such an essentially open circuit by its 'popular' discourse, but they put a lot of effort in presenting good Hungarian Bands or creations around roots or what I generally prefer to refer to as traditional music.
Headliners change every year, and I think main voices of isolated cultures are heard in an open festival context which largely favors the music. I am thinking of Tinariwen the voice of the Desert Nomads, or last year Erik Marchand emerging from Breton-Bulgarian fusion, also Marie Boine, who is extremely famous in Norway, but not necessarily in outside.
It's interesting to have this dialog between the genres - which is the whole interest of having those 'categories'. Sziget is such a rich place you'd want to go anywhere, I believe (or at least I'm optimistic about it, I want to believe).

The Jazz stage also includes many Hungarian wonders, as we started seeing on Friday the 10th with Dresch Quartet. Luckily Eastern European Jazz is well represented in a place where such 'free-explorations' of music is generally felt restricted: this shows exactly how dynamic the Hungarian music scene is (the organisers also act by imposing themselves as a platform for what is East from the blurry boarders of Germany and Austria...). In such ways I recognized the same musicians in Electro-alternative, Acoustic-roots, or ethnic-jazz formats, for example.


On Saturday the 11th we started at the Jazz Stage again with Harcsa Veronika Quartet at the Jazz stage, a voice we found particularly interesting. Later we made our way back to the World Music stage where Manu Dibango delighted us all with an excellent musical and festival-spirit display of Makossa music from his native Cameroun. In between juggling with his band and his tenor-saxophone solos, Manu was one of many artists at the festival who could allow himself to exchange with the public in French (who was definitely a vast majority last year).
Then we saw the charming Emilie Simon at the Dance-theatre stage (about which I can't say much at the moment, as it was the only performance I attended last year - but the program is excellent as for all stages). The French singer had a big French Crowd as for every French artist, but I here she is also very popular in Hungary (the only drunk people we could hear were French...), and the concert was very nice - the place was a charming one, standing on a hill which gives a kind of antique greek-theatre style to the context.
We finished with the always-nice-to-see "Free Style Chamber Orchestra" from Budapest at the Jazz Stage, "featuring Hungarian Jazz divas" (Harcsa Veronika again, Váczi Eszter, Tisza Bea, and Hoffman Mónika...).
Next day, Sunday, the 12th, we started our day at 4.30 (lucky we) with Babylon Circus, a reggae-band from Brittany, France! The lead-singer was so astonished, when he asked the crowd half-way through the set, "are there any French-heads here?" and 80% of the crowd answered back (this was all in French, even if the Band does perform some songs in English)!
Very entertaining, and it must have been great for the band (not as good as Manu Chao on the opening night, I heard...).
We then went to the World Music Stage to see Muzsikás, a traditional Hungarian Music and Dance Ensemble, but who was missing the iconic Márta Sébesztyen for the occasion.
After a brief look at Alpha Blondy (Cameroun/France's version of a 90's Bob Marley vogue), which I knew already, we went to the Wan2Stage (experimental, rock, hip-hop, house, in this tent we had a bit of everything). There we made a great discovery, Beat Assailant, another Band from France (we didn't know at first), with a rapper from Atlanta, US.
To have a good laugh, we headed straight afterwards for Pleymo, the French neo-metal band, who was apparently doing their last show before having a break. I could see the Hungarian crowd wasn't charmed...
To finish the evening feeling like it's been a perfect day (I think it wasn't even raining, too!), we went to see Erik Truffaz Quartet feat. Ed Harcourt, we had seen earlier the same year, and that was a fantastic crowd-pleaser (for which I was also delighted), which fitted greatly in the festival format. (Thumbs up to Ed Harcourt, that I appreciate more and more...)
That evening we finished having a few Pálinkás at the Pálinká-Ház with our Dutch friends.


On Monday, for our last night, we started with Szájról Szájra, which was a great, truely great ensemble of Hungarian musicians surounding three of the countries best traditional feminine voices (Szaloki Ági, Bognar Szilvia...). After a brief encounter with Blues singer/flutist Török Ádám and his band, we headed for the Jazz stage for an amazing final evening - starting with Balázs Elemér Group (for whom I can only be but biased - even if they were already on the previous year) and followed by Cameroun's Bass Etienne M'Bappe, again a great festival-pleaser. After a last shot of Pálinká, we headed for Colorstart at the Wan2Stage, but it wasn't that memorable... Anyway - after 25 concerts, how could we complain!!!

ps: oh, and I think I missed out mentioning we went to see Pink.. yeah every year Sziget has some bigger plans which necessitate less ideas. Last year it was Sean Paul. Nevermind...

Sziget 2007 - FIRST CAME THE RAIN...

SZIGET FESTIVAL 2007...


First came the rain, a torrential one who flooded the Island and the islanders, but also packed all available concert tents, which is how I found myself with a thousand crazy Frenchman under the tent where Cassius was playing... Good surprises, but the few Hungarians who randomly ended under there because of the rain were a bit astounded with the majority of Mr Baguette and Mrs Red Wine's clan. So it left us with two days of rain anyway - and having to queue on the muddy paths, fighting for a bit of dry soil or paved path.
Let's not be negative though - the atmosphere was absolutely amazing, people decorating their half-naked bodies with Mud, Sand, and beer, huge mud-fights, building mud-castles, improvising group-music on the big trash-containers, sitting on containers like lonely kings on their own Island...

Running for your (dry) life, for a bit of shelter next to a warm body, for music, for your favourite dance-groups, your favourite djs, and your favourite international camping area (Is is the Italians, the French, the Dutch, the Germans... the Kazakhs?), fighting to have your home-flag being raised in the central alley of the festival, to avoid or to melt in your 'home-gang' in the midst of thousand musical scenes - zene paradise...
Zene is music, not zen. But peace we eventually find under the information tent, where the banner for "Menekült tábor" is raised, which means Refugee Camp. That's where information goes I tell you! And we ended up playing football with a plastic ball in there, in the hustle of lost people looking for shelter or leaving the Island just for the night and of scattered Sziget 2007 programs.

CESARIA EVORA
http://www.myspace.com/cesariaevora

The diva was strong and brave to come and stop in Budapest, where a crazy Sziget gave her the warmest of welcomes, nevertheless showing some lack in terms of silence... The diva was a mother-goddess wearing blue, in a dress of total honesty and simplicity, but covered by a voice of such natural intensity. The sound of the Cape-Verde's language makes it all so complex, beautiful, and seemingly surreal, too good to be true.
After a 10 minute break when Cesaria, empress of her garden, stands looking calmly at her young public, with a withering public screaming with delight, Cesaria finishes her set sitting while her band finishes beautifully and she allows herself time for a Cigarette.
Two days later, Cesaria Evora was in Brittany for the Festival du Bout du Monde...

'Feliz ano novo' to you too, Cesaria...

ETIENNE M'BAPPE
www.myspace.com/etiennembappe

I didn't quite know what to expect of Etienne M'Bappe, much less how the Sziget crowd would react to his music, the jazz-tent being a strange and rare (but great) experience for such a mainstream but dynamic festival. I was afraid this music would be but a more humble re-creation of Richard Bona's great and very successful afro-jazz band. Etienne M'Bappe is also a bass-virtuoso with his own characteristics and techniques, but how is this re-created when it comes to sharing your inner music?
Mr M'Bappe was a more humble version of Richard Bona, finishing on a Reggae classic rather than on the bash-funk version of Stevie Wonder by Mr Bona, and stays more within his own music, whereas Richard Bona wonders off in Jaco Music... Moreover when I was satisfied with the whole sound, I could fully appreciate the groove and 'fresh' quality of this band, who is particularly enriched through the presence of two very young guns, Mister Jimmy and John Grandcamp, brothers respectively on guitar and drums. Jimmy Grandcamp was astounding, and the man was but 20 year's old at the time! He mastered the rhythms of Cameroon perfectly (or what I know from listening to the likes of Manu Dibango and Richard Bona...), and his venturing in Hendrix style solos growling over M'Bappe's soft and tender African lullabies was done with impeccable timing. He was definitely the youngest but biggest attraction in this original sextet (bass, guitar, drum, guitar II, saxophone/flute, backing vocal).
And then comes the bass... I don't know how M'Bappe's strings resist, but the fact his trademark is to wear thin gloves maybe explains it all nicely.
all in all, I spent the whole concert right under his nose, and it was quite astounding.
The public adored it - and the pinch of Cameroon salt in the sea of jazz is a great crowd-pleaser - or a least this concert confirmed so.

Street design

The unimagined complexity of everyone's place, strolling, walking, appearing everywhere with the sole pretense of marking a point in our lives. What's the point, or what's the shape of our colour, our complex sense of being in one point, written.
The yellow light is one of there, I know it is, for the only reason I have never seen it elsewhere. It is theirs for an unimagined reason.

Talán mert soha kikapcsolták a fény ott...

(maybe because they never switched the light off there)

Shh... Listen!
Fekete-Kovács Kornél

Balaton - Beach & Old cars

Back there, lying on the grass of one of the only public piece of coast around the lake.
Reading 'on the road', in the sun. A man is sticking his belly out beautifully, it makes me feel warm and 'slumpy', a good hot summer feeling. Still have to run for a mile to have water up to the neck, but then Hungarians love waterpolo, and no wonder, they have the perfect premises for that.
Balaton is one of the few places in Hungary where a nice fresh and playful wind flies around. Usually it is rather dry, but here the wind is free...
I am drowned out of thoughts by the simple play of colors along the grassy beach.
Doze off for a few hours, and it's time to go for some wine-tasting...

The lake seen from high up and afar is something friends show me with great pride there, whether it is on the motorway on the way to Budapest, as a place of old and peace, or whether it is from up the hill on the side of Balatonfüred, where the place stands like a steady hand baring the earth upwards, and welcoming others in its palm.
Balaton, from afar, has deeper qualities that one doesn't always catch in the hassle of tourist, spazierend, a la marche, caminando, lurking about for more wine and shots of traditional musicians and dancers. Although written involuntarily, the image of tourists "shooting" around Hungary is quite a good one, as it takes time to take its specificity, but then people are eager to show us around as fast as it takes to down a shot of good Házi Pálinká.
So down we go again. To Balaton, its welcoming palm, and its old cars!

Summer flat

Paprika - Paradicsom!
Aah the sweet melody... Something I've wanted to say 'out loud!' for a long time.
The perfect recipe to have an enjoyable time in Hungary. I think no Advertising company - or a tourist agency - would buy this from me as a slogan (well I hope not!). Words used in the present, but thought in the future. Here I am at a typical stage of human discourse-history. Future tense isn't used anymore, and we have a confusing present to face.
This morning, I hear the following story about 'ossies', or locals from Post-socialist countries:
"We are not afraid of the future, we know it. It is the past we are afraid of - it keeps changing!"
Another Wessies about Ossies theory of nostalgia - but a sensible one.
However did we think of reflecting this thought on our own societies? I hope we never forget to do so... What we do and what we get from it is also a reflection of what to do...
I trust Hungarians are positive enough to look realistically at the future - and maybe we can be of assistance in terms of connecting them to a difficult past, if we do so ourselves. But what is its worth?
Paprika - Paradicsom...
Sounds like all the ingredients are there already.
Let's share the light?