Filed under: Aural Pleasure | Tags: avant-garde, Budapest, Hungary, jazz, Jazzékiel, punk, underground
by Spencer
image courtesy of myspace.com/jazzekiel
What happens when you take the smooth, smoky sounds of barroom jazz and mix it with screamed vocals and punk breakdowns? Budapest, Hungary’s jazz-punk band, Jazzékiel (pronounced Jazz-eh-key-ell) is a group of guys whose unique brand of music is as rag-tag as the way they look. Their music runs the gamut from metal, to math-rock to punk, to finger-snapping jazz. One would think, upon seeing Jazzékiel that they never really decided what type of music they should play, so they decided to play them all. My favorite song of theirs, named A Rossz Testvér (meaning “The Bad Brother”) has an upbeat, catchy, scat-singing section that has resonated in my head since I saw them months back.
The funny thing about music in Hungary is that the musicians in the “big” bands are still just local dudes, and can be seen taking your order at restaurants (in the case of a popular rap group, Punnany Massif), or helping you in various stores throughout the country.
As for the band itself, the lead singer, Áron Hegyi, looks like an angry, bearded homeless man that was pulled off the streets to perform for your pleasure, and perform he does. The keyboard player, who sold me minutes for my mobile phone a week before I saw them play, tickles the ivories with veracity and tenacity. The odd make-up of the group only leads to the appeal of the band as a whole. Neither their look nor their music fit into any previous mould. Their live show is not one to be missed; I know it’s difficult to recommend it to Americans, because a stateside tour doesn’t seem likely in the near future. However, I highly recommend heading over to their newly re-designed MySpace page and taking a listen, at: www.myspace.com/jazzekiel. If you like it, buy it! I’m sure they’d appreciate it, and say “Köszönjuk szépen!”
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