Irén Lovász and Teagrass
Wide is the Danube
CCn'C, Germany (www.ccnc.de)

I was thoroughly lost from the first few bars of this unusual recording. After a few measures of music right out of the Musikas songbook, they were slipping into a jazzy violin riff and then the CD rolled on from there. It dips into bluegrass and newgrass, hovers around klezmer without ever landing, and takes folk music from Moravia, Hungary and other eastern European locales and adds American folk music in some very interesting ways.

Band leader and singer Lovász has a strong, rich voice, not dissimilar from her fellow Hungarian Marta Sebestyén. The band, a mix of Moravian and Slovak musicians based in Czech Republic, is clearly well versed in bluegrass and blues, but with the strong input of traditional European material. They are offered a real challenge in adapting all of these disparate sounds to a new music suitable for Lovász' folk-academic singing style. They succeed over and over again, moving from straight traditional modes to Dawg-music ramblings, all with great ease and artfulness.

"Vergen Meg Az Isten"

The tune we have chosen here is "Vergen Meg Az Isten" (The Curse of God), features a classic Hungarian sound, with a throbbing cello for the bass part supporting the vocals, cimbalom and saxophone, punctuated by some hot fiddling from Stanislav Palúch to create the bridge between east and west. - Cliff Furnald

Audio:©2000 CCn'C Records, Germany
Presented with the express permission of the publishers