The article touches on BMC?s Music Information Centre, Budapest?s MOL Jazz Festival and the company?s new building, to open next year. The article stresses BMC?s diverse offering of jazz, from Gábor Gadó?s ?New York mood? solos to the jazz-folk combination in the music of virtuosos such as Béla Szakcsi Lakatos and Miklós Lukács. The 70-year-old Downbeat caused an uproar recently when it put Sweden?s Esbjörn Svensson trio on its cover?the ensemble was the first European jazz act to feature so prominently in the magazine. Many American jazz performers have difficulty understanding why European musicians ? with disregard for jazz's African roots ? want to ?Europeanize? the form with their own folk music. Others think jazz is jazz regardless of skin colour or nationality. The trumpeter Joe McPhee believes European musicians should remain open to European and African influences. Music writer Stuart Nicholson takes up the question of European jazz in a more provocative manner in his book, published last year, entitled Is Jazz Dead?(Or Has it Moved to a New Address), in which he points out that American jazz, having turned its back on globalisation, is far behind the more adventurous sounds of Europe.
Source: Fidelio
