JAZZ SPRING 2007 - 30th April-3rd May, 2007 - PALACE OF ARTS

30th April  Monday 7.30 pm
Béla Bartók National Concert Hall
Roy Hargrove – trumpet, cornet, Justin Robinson – alto saxophone, flute, Ronnie Matthews  – piano, Dwayne Burno  – double bass, Willie Jones III – drums
“If I was taking up jazz today, then Roy Hargrove would be my role model” – said the world famous Polish trumpeter Tomas Stanko. Born in 1969, Hargrove was an acknowledged musician while still a teenager and his supreme talent attracted the attention of Wynton Marsalis.  He was then able to play with Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard and Bobby Hutcherson. He then moved to New York and not long after, recorded his first CD with saxophonist Bobby Watson. In 1990 he released his own album.
He was soon classified as a “young lion”, one of the great hopes of the future shaping new jazz trends. In 1994 he signed a contract with Verve Records and has since released eight albums for them. In 1995 he won the poll conducted among readers of influential American magazine Down Beat. The only greater acknowledgement for him than this was that he was invited to partner Joe Henderson, Stanley Turrentine, Johnny Griffin, Sonny Rollins and Jackie McLean.
His career continues to skyrocket: in 2002 he joined up with Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker in a “triumvirate” that released a concert album commemorating Miles Davis and John Coltrane. After an expedition into the arcane world of hip-hop jazz he formed a new quintet which again surveys a style very much to his liking, post-bop. The audience at his 2007 Jazz Spring concert can hear the first fruits of this latest enterprise in the form of material from his album Nothing Serious.

1st May Tuesday 7.30 pm
Festival Theatre
Gábor Gadó – guitar, Matthieu Donarier – saxophone, Sébastien Boisseau – double bass, Joe Quitzke – drums
Hungarian musician Gábor Gadó now lives in Paris but his French quintet is no exotic shift ensemble but since 2000 has been his resident band. Gadó, who has made music with the likes of Róbert Rátonyi jr, Ferenc Snétberger, Attila László, Béla Szakcsi Lakatos, Elemér Balázs and Kálmán Oláh, has led his own bands since the early 1990s. During his career, his principal ambition has been to create his own voice and musical world and his musical colleagues have proven ideal partners for this.
So far, Gadó has released eight of his own albums on BMC Records, of which Greetings from the Angel (2000), Orthodoxia (2002) and Unknown Kingdom (2003) received the highest “Choc” rating from the leading French jazz magazine Jazzman. Hungarian Gramofon magazine also awarded several of his albums five points out of the maximum five.
In 2003, he was awarded the Bobby Jaspar Oeuvre Prize which is the highest award given by the French L’Académie du Jazz. Today’s concert will give us a unique spiritual and intellectual experience as he performs his latest compositions as well as older works which are now favourites among jazz lovers.

2nd May 2007 Wednesday 7.30 pm
Festival Theatre
Bea Tisza – vocals, Gyula Csepregi – saxophone, János Nagy – piano, Péter Lukács – guitar, Arnie Somogyi – double bass, Winston Clifford – drums
Bea Tisza, one of the leading female vocalists in Hungarian jazz, began life studying classical piano before graduating as a jazz singer from the Academy of Music in 1995. As a soloist, she has worked on numerous records and in concert performances, with bands such as those of Gyula Babos, Rudolf Tomsits, János Gonda and Attila László. But she also made a name for herself as a backing vocalist for artists including Klári Katona, Gábor Presser, Charlie and Zsuzsa Cserháti. She is also a recognised composer.
In 1994, she performed with world famous musicians in László Mándoki’s People project. In 1998 she won first prize with the Kálmán Oláh sextet at the “Stella Artois” Music Competition and that same year, released a solo album of jazz standards which was followed by two further albums. Her 2003 CD album Bea contained mostly her own compositions and on it, she could be heard for the first time playing with British colleagues with whom she debuted at the London 606 club in February 2002.
Besides her work as a vocalist and composer, teaching is also very important for her and she is amongst other things a teacher at the Academy of Music jazz faculty.

3rd May Thursday 7.30 pm
Béla Bartók National Concert Hall
Randy Brecker – trumpet, Bill Evans – soprano and tenor saxophone, Hiram Bullock – guitar, Dave Kikoski – keyboard instruments, Victor Bailey – bass guitar, Rodney Holmes – drums
The Soulbop Band associated with the names of Randy Brecker and Bill Evans contains an all star cast. If it isn’t enough to hear live the oldest brother of the Brecker brothers who were a hugely celebrated jazz-rock band in the 1970s (and this brother was also the soloist of the Mingus Big Band and one of the finest trumpeters of recent decades), or the exceptionally virtuosic saxophonist who first made a name for himself in Miles Davis’s band, before playing with John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Gil Evans and Mick Jagger, there is even more on offer! There is the favourite guitarist, singer and showman, Hiram Bullock, the legendary partner of Roy Haines, keyboard musician David Kikoski, the bass guitarist regarded as the inheritor of the mantle of Jaco Pastorius Victor Bailey and the power force behind the new Brecker Brothers, Joe Zawinul and Santana bands, drummer Rodney Holmes.
Formed in 2003, the band, as their name suggests, offer a progressive fusion of soul, bebop and other contemporary jazz trends.

More information: www.mupa.hu