[Dixielandjazz] Bohem RAgtime & Jazz FEstival 2014

[Marek Boym]

Listmate Tamas Itzes put on another successful festival.  How lovely!
The Bhem Ragtime Jazz Band must be among the best contemporary bands in
the world!  Tamas is an excellent pianist and violinist, and not a bad
singer.  In Attila Korb the band has a wonderful
trumpeter-trombonist-pianist.  Another wonderful player is Zoltan Matral on
reeds, in particular - the tenor and soprano saxophone (Tamas said taht
Zoltan added the latter only recently).  and the band swings like mad!
In addtition, there were the New York Earregulars and Aaron Weinstein, an
excellent Slovak trumpeter Juraj Bartos, the hard swinging Czech big band
Ondrej Havelka & the Melody Makers (since the leader is a singer, there
were numerous vocals, but they were mostly hot and swinging).
And the jam sessions!  Wow!  Hungary has so many wonderful musicians it's
painful!  The Havelka band had two violinist who played as section men
only.  However, one of them participated in a jam session, where he
displayed his real mettle.
Most musicians were young, as was a goodly proportion of the audience.
On the second day, when we walked downstairs from the concert hall to the
lobby where the jam sessions took place, very convincing boogie woogie
sound came from the stage.  It turned out to be a 14 year boy, who had been
taking lwssons for a few years, but started playing jazz just a year ago.
He took the stage again after 1AM, when the jam session was over, and
showed he could play swinging piano not in the boogie woogie vein, aothough
he finished with another boogie.
The weather was great, and the festival atmosphere very friendly.  It was
my second (I was there in 2012), and hopefully - not my last.
Kudos for Tamas!
Be warned, however, that Hungarian beer is not worthy of drinking.
Cheers