Cymande and Tigran standout at Romania’s Jazz In The Park jazz festival

A jazz festival in Transylvania’s heartland, Jazz In The Park continues to mature nicely. Offering a widescreen vision of jazz to a knowledgeable audience in the dark fairytale grounds of Cluj’s Parcul Etnografic Național (pictured below - photo by Gabriel Aldea), and with plenty to do aside from the music, this family-friendly festival is highly recommended.

The Roman band Wasted Generation’s blend of straight ahead jazz and exploratory solos opened the festival and set the tone nicely before France’s Daoud  dragged the audience out of the shade, fireball frontman and trumpeter daoud playing lyrically and direct, his band a sinewy outfit that can play it cool or explosive.

UK quartet oreglo showcased their tricky-to-define range, swerving from reggae-inspired grooves to prog while Hungary’s Jazzbois provided one of the day’s highlights. A fluid improvisational trio (plus saxophonist Dom Beats) they can sound like Weather Report and Madlib in the same song, their set a hazy beat-led journey with triggered samples, outrageous bass by Viktor Sági and proof that they can really cut loose when they feel like it.

I’m still unsure about Kinga Glyk. The Polish bass player is undoubtedly an excellent instrumentalist but despite the crowd’s favour, I can’t help but feel that she needs something more. Romania’s answer to Galliano, Norzeatic & Quinta Spartă won the day with their flowing mix of funk, hip hop and jazz. Expanded to a 10-piece for this gig, the veteran rapper-poet Norzeatic led the band through a thrilling hook-filled set, his abstracted use of the Romanian language lending it a Brazilian feel!

Romanian-based jazz-funkers KRiSPER opened Saturday, a winning blend of interstellar Herbie and Strata East grit, the big horns, beefy rhythm section and an overdriven Rhodes really shaking the cobwebs away. TUMBE’s jazz-rock interpretations of Aromanian folk music was another loud start on the Hill Stage, Mara’s voice a thing of beauty.

The best of the jazz acts was the Azerbaijani pianist, Isfar Sarabski, who led his quartet through a superb improvisational performance where ancient traditions and contemporary jazz collided. An extraordinary pianist with a killer rhythm section, the set was gilded with the introduction of Shahriyar Imanov, his lute-like Tar adding a haunting folkloric presence to the music.

I was hyped to see Jazzanova’s live incarnation but after Sarabski’s fireworks, the pioneering German’s jazz-house stylings left me underwhelmed, a disco-fied version of Lyman Woodard’s ‘Saturday Night Special’ saving the day. The celebrated French session drummer Manu Katché may be an outstanding player but his band’s simple jazz-rock compositions seemed geared only to highlight his drums, making it repetitive.

The undisputed highlight of the weekend was the Brit-Caribbean soul-jazz legends Cymande on their first Romanian visit. Unknown to most of the crowd, by the time they played an unbelievable version of ‘Bra’, the entire audience was smiling. With a scorching hot band (including Brit altoist Tony Kofi), founders Steve Scipio and Patrick Patterson’s vocals sounded vital and brimming with soul.

Amphitrio’s Scandi-jazz meets the Balkans set was a lovely Sunday opener. Expansive and cinematic, the Bucharest trio were an enjoyable and promising surprise. Amsterdam-based NAUSYQA were another revelation. Intense contemporary jazz with influences from post-rock, electronica and drum’n’bass, their emotional sound was powerfully delivered despite the blazing sunshine. I found myself dancing next to them during the wonderful set by the great Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab, their beautifully performed fusion of Afro-Cuban and Wolof music showcasing their singular ability to slide in new generations of musicians every decade.

Moldavia’s Trigon delivered an exhilarating set of ancestral influences and cosmic theatre that could have been Balkan tropicália! Ney flutes, nasal singing, discordant violin, fx boxes and a shapeshifting, jazz-fusion energy brought the house down. Attracting a surprising number of metalheads, Tigran Hamaysan’s powerful trio were mathematically intricate but with deep pockets of angular grooves (the pianist pictured above - photo by Gabriel Aldea) . Relentless and electrifying from the start, the remarkable Armenian pianist drove the trio hard, the rhythm section playing out of their skins.

The festival closed with the Avishai Cohen Trio’s muscular chamber jazz. Probably the most conventional jazz act of the day, there were some stirring improvisations although ending on a weak version of ‘Summertime’ seemed odd.

A tremendous weekend of music and good vibes where the emerging acts certainly held their own. Definitely one for the festival wish list.