Vive le Jazz! Festival
14–16 November
Opus Jazz Club

French jazz brings wonderful colours to the European scene. The fourth edition of Vive le Jazz!, a joint festival of the Budapest Music Center and the Institut Français de Budapest, celebrates the vivid and diverse world of French jazz in Opus Jazz Club between 14 and 16 November. With Sélène Saint-Aimé, we welcome a rising star on the stage, Edredon Sensible brings a new shade to the festival with their visceral trance music, and star saxophonist Emile Parisien is now back with his quartet.

On 14 November, the trio of Sélène Saint-Aimé will open the festival. Sélène is an Afro-French double bassist, singer, poet and composer with Caribbean and West African origins. Her debut album Mare Undarum in 2021 immediately earned her the Victoire du Jazz award, honoring France's most outstanding jazz artists. While Mare Undarum translated the secrets of the moon into music, Sélène's second album, Potomitan (2022), explores her Caribbean cultural and family heritage through an imaginary folklore vivified by improvisation.

Edredon Sensible feels most at home in trance music. They play minimalist jazz that is almost primitive, and extremely explosive. Their musical world focuses on ardour and faith, body and soul. Two relentless polyrhythmic drummers and two tenor and baritone saxophonists take an insane pleasure in stretching out attacks and playing them in infinite loops. On 15 November, they refresh lovers of an elementary but wild jazz, focused on trance, with its roots set in every continent.

Coincidences usually end in seconds; this one has been going on for 20 years. It has been two decades since the members of Emile Parisien's quartet played a jam session together. Their common ground was jazz, but each had all kinds of seeds to sow in it, from classical music and contemporary sounds to rock, electronica and chanson. The group has been ripping up labels, upsetting codes ever since, and yet they know exactly where they are headed. In the meantime, they have moved away from a purely acoustic approach and expanded the sound of the classic jazz quartet with electronics. On 16 November, the closing day of Vive le Jazz!, they show what it means for them to make music in 2024 with their new programme Let Them Cook.

Tickets are available for each concert for 3900 HUF on the spot, online at bmc.jegy.hu, and at InterTicket Jegypont partners across Hungary.