Budapest Music Center / Opus Jazz Club

Jazz d’Or Budapest 2025, with live: Kovász.

Jazz d’Or, an organization based in Strasbourg, is now for three days in Budapest Music Center. An incredible building: restaurant, jazzclub, music library, label office, recording studios, venue for contemporary/classical, 13 hotelrooms plus appartment for visiting directors. And oh yes: a special department in the music library holds the complete recorded output of Gustav Mahler, both vinyls and cds. And a nice poster with Willem Mengelberg/Mahler in Amsterdam, back in the day. The BMC label will publish 22 full album releases this year, mostly contemporary classical and jazz. Oh and BMC also holds an annual cimbalom competition. The vibe in the building is amazing…

Jazz d’Or is a traveling initiative to promote intercultural jazz collabs, both on stage and off stage in the way it facilitates programmers talking to eachother outside of their jampacked inboxes. I truly believe in this initiative: last night we had a very interesting long talk on building new audience for jazz in the UK and in Belgium.

Kovász, a very interesting showcase last night. The line up in Magyar is too gorgeous to translate:
Kováts Gergő – szaxofon, basszusklarinét
Pozsár Máté – zongora, szintetizátorok
Dénes Ábel – nagybőgő, gardon
Gyárfás Attila – dob, gong, ring modulátor