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Since my childhood jazz has represented a mysterious, forbidden world, because I always used to listen to it on a shortwave radio, which was forbidden in Hungary at the time. In the 50s listening to shortwave radio was the same as listening to western anticommunist propaganda. Mostly only the jamming transmitters, noise and whistling, interference, were audible. The music itself always came from the background, as if it were coming from Mars. Over the years, I got used to this. So when I first heard live jazz in the 60s, I felt something important was missing. Somehow it was so empty. Back then I had read far more into the constant jamming signals and noises. They were delicate signs, and dangerous, because by listening to jazz I brought upon my family the risk of being reported to the police.

The wonderful, confused sounds of my childhood later, sadly, became separate: I managed to find the shortwave murmurs in electronic music, and musique concrete; and jazz, fortunately, has kept its mysterious attraction to this day, even without noise.
The theme of this CD is composition and improvisation in the most varied combinations, with single and double-bell brass solos.

Snatches...is as freely composed as an improvi- sation. A friendly conversation in a coffeehouse, snatches of clever conversation, full of irony… and we trace our way between the tables... The waiter is a double-bell trumpet...
The soloists (Marco Blaauw and Omar Ebrahim) do not improvise in this piece.

Jet Stream is a painting, horizontal stripes made with brushes of varying thickness (up to several kilometres wide), dangerous yellow – blue – silvery colours, the energy of high altitude winds, the drifting which can be like a Japanese crowd in a one-way street, where only one person (the trumpeter) tries to go in the opposite direction.
Drifting and resistance... There are two trumpet cadenzas, and the first is a free improvisation by Markus Stockhausen.

Paris-Dakar is a veritable Paris-Dakar rally. Rushing through the sandy desert, the heat, dust, deranged tempo... big band.
In this race the double-bell trombone (soloist László Gőz) holds the first place, improvising freely, without any constraint.

The compositions on this CD “use” the pulse of jazz, and at times its harmonies, articulations and gestures, but they do not have the beauty of live jazz, the magic of that “moment”. Rather, the three composed pieces are a “message in a bottle” from my world to jazz lovers.

A gift to me and the audience is the improvisation by two outstanding jazz musicians on themes from my opera Le Balcon. My thanks to them.

Péter Eötvös
December 2003
translated by Richard Robinson

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Péter Eötvös was born in Székelyudvarhely in 1944.
1958 Admitted to the Academy of Music in Budapest on the recommendation of Zoltán Kodály, to major in composition.
1966-68 Studied conducting at the Music College of Cologne on a DAAD scholarship.
1968-76 Member of the Stockhausen Ensemble.
1971-78 Member of the WDR Electronic Studio.
1979-91 Music director of the Parisian Ensemble InterContemporain.
1985-88 First guest conductor of the BBC Symphonic Orchestra in London.
1991 Founded the International Eötvös Institute for young conductors and composers.
Since 1994 he has been the leading conductor of the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra.
He has received several international and Hungarian prizes and awards (among others: Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Bartók-Pásztory Prize, Kossuth Prize). All his compositions have been released on CD by BMC, DGG, Bis, Kairos, ECM and col legno.

musikFabrik dedicates itself to creating exemplary interpretations of contemporary music.
Its innovative programming and autonomous organisational structure are characteristic of this ensemble of international soloists. musikFabrik has a broad, extensive repertoire that includes – alongside the more established literature – works tailored specifically for it, many of which the ensemble has commissioned itself. These works are presented at festivals and concerts. The ensemble’s activities are documented regularly for radio and CD.

One important focus of the group involves modern forms of communication and the search for new and experimental possibilities of expression in the field of music performance. Interdisciplinary projects in combination with other art forms – such as live electronics, dance theatre, music theatre, and installations – add further depth to the ensemble’s profile.

The ensemble works closely together with conductors and composers such as Mauricio Kagel, Péter Eötvös, Vinko Globokar, Nicolaus A. Huber, Helmut Lachenmann, Louis Andriessen, Rebecca Saunders, Emmanuel Nunes, Richard Ayres, Joël Durand, Christoph Staude, Hans Zender, Stefan Asbury, Franck Ollu, Dominique My, James Wood, Peter Rundel, Kasper de Roo, Zsolt Nagy and Diego Masson.
Since its inception in 1990, musikFabrik has been subsidised by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

musikFabrik artists performing on this CD:
Marco Blaauw – double bell trumpet solo
Helen Bledsoe – flute, alto flute
John Corbett – clarinet (A)
Niels Bijl – tenor saxophone
Bruce Collings – trombone
Achim Seyler – vibraphone
Dirk Rothbrust – marimbaphone
Ulrich Löffler – keyboard
Tomoko Kiba – violin 1
Angela Jaffé – violin 2
Axel Porath – viola
Dirk Wietheger – cello
Michel Tiepold – double bass

Guest soloist:
Omar Ebrahim – speaker

The BBC Symphony Orchestra was founded by Sir Adrian Boult in 1930. Since then, its Chief Conductors have included Antal Doráti, Pierre Boulez, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Sir Colin Davis, and Sir John Pritchard.
The Orchestra has worked closely with a number of great composers, including Bartók, Henze, Lutoslawski, Pärt, Prokofiev, Strauss and Stravinsky.

The Orchestra’s commitment to new music has resulted in its giving premieres of over 1,100 works, many of which were commissioned by the BBC and have since become established classics.

In 2000 Leonard Slatkin became the Orchestra’s 11th Chief Conductor, succeeding Sir Andrew Davis who became its first Conductor Laureate. In another first, Mark-Anthony Turnage held the post of Associate Composer from 2000-2003. In January 2003 the highly-acclaimed Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste was appointed to the position of Principal Guest Conductor and in June 2003 John Adams became Artist in Association.

As the flagship orchestra of the BBC, the BBC Symphony Orchestra provides the backbone of the Proms, with more than a dozen appearances each summer, including the First and Last Nights. The Orchestra’s schedule includes an annual concert season at the Barbican and regional UK concerts alongside international touring. Every January the BBC SO celebrates the work of a 20th Century or contemporary composer with a weekend festival.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra records for many of the major recording labels and appears regularly on television. Its concert at Buckingham Palace as part of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations was seen by an audience of millions around the world. Every performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and on the BBC Radio 3 website.

Guest soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra:
Marcus Stockhausen – trumpet

The Budapest Jazz Orchestra was formed in 1998, as the only professionally managed big band in Hungary for decades. Since the beginning of its existence its musical director has been Kornél Fekete-Kovács, trumpeter, composer and teacher at the Jazz Faculty of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. Over the past years the BJO has given several high-quality performances at jazz clubs,
concert halls, Hungarian and foreign jazz festivals, among them the Montreux Jazz Festival, and some of their concerts were broadcast by the Hungarian Radio.
Among the main aims of the Orchestra is to restore the position of the big band tradition in Hungarian jazz life by performing the work of both legendary big band composers and lesser known authors, as well as delivering this tradition to audiences receptive to jazz. They have organized concert series introducing masterpieces of the big band musical literature from the work of Duke Ellington and Count Basie to those of Stan Kenton and Charles Mingus.
They also find it important to create the ensemble’s own voice, and for this purpose they frequently call for the help of Hungarian arrangers, among others Kálmán Oláh, Károly Friedrich, Zoltán Zana, or Kornél Fekete-Kovács.
The ensemble has made “excursions” into contemporary music as well. In 2000 they played Franco Donatoni’s work entitled Sweet Basil, and in 2003 they performed Eötvös’ Paris-Dakar several times.
The BJO has recorded three CDs: in 2001 Kornél Fekete-Kovács’s Budapest Jazz Suite was released (BMC CD 065), in 2002 the double CD entitled Big Band Legends came out, and in 2003 they invited world-famous American saxophone player Dave Liebman to bring to life another Fekete-Kovács piece, entitled Human Circle – The Wayfarer (BMC CD 088).

BJO artists performing on this CD:
Ákos Csejtey – soprano saxophone
Gábor Kollmann – alto saxophone
Zoltán Zana – tenor saxophone
Mihály Bajusznács – baritone saxophone
László Simai – trumpet
Szabolcs Ducsai – trumpet
Kornél Fekete-Kovács – trumpet
Ferenc Schreck – trombone
Dániel Nagy Viktor – trombone
Miklós Csáthy – bass trombone
Csaba Pusztai – drums
Boglárka Fábry – percussion

Guest soloist:
László Gőz – double-bell trombone