Somogyi/ Hungary Jazz
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Loading... - Ariadne Condos
- 16 Jun 2022
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Arnie Somogyi, the bell-toned and enterprising double bassist, turns up in a surprising number of diverse ensembles and projects - Galliano's, Omar's and the film The Talented Mr Ripley among them. As if that weren't enough, he has diversified into running a jazz club, a record label (Forged Records) and now a three-day festival exploring some implications of his Hungarian ancestry - a meeting of contemporary British and Hungarian jazz musicians at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho.
Each evening is structured around a set by Somogyi's regular working band, Cold Cherry Soup, augmented by a variety of guests. Sunday's opener made a fascinating contrast with the European cross-genre events concurrently going on at the Bath festival, with their combination of new jazz and contemporary classical music. The Hungary jazz festival is in general more rootsy, songlike and direct, with traditional east European gypsy exerting a powerful influence.
As well as performances by the orientally inclined jazz guitarist Gabor Juhasz and the young Hungarian rhythm section of Andras Mohay and Balasz Horvath, Sunday's performance saw an episode of remarkable empathy involving UK saxophonist Iain Ballamy and cimbalom player Kalman Balogh. Ballamy, who is lately delivering some of the most shapely and poignant saxophone improvising of his career, formed a sympathetic relationship with Balogh that brought delicately shifting musical colours from the differences between the saxophone's oblique and softly understated lines, the quietly percussive, harpsichord-like attack of the cimbalom, and Somogyi's big bass tone beneath.
Cold Cherry Soup, meanwhile, focused on American bop. A crisp rhythm section featuring Somogyi and the effortlessly hip Winston Clifford underpinned some punchy and swinging sax variations from the fluent Tony Lakatos and guitarist Zsolt Bende. As ever, pianist Liam Noble played as if his improvisations, however much in the spirit of an old idiom, were newly minted. Read More...
