Performers of note in three days of music

Festival director Orsolya Valde says the festival has managed to put together a strong line-up despite the travel difficulties experienced this summer, partly because most of the international performers to feature at this year’s event have played in Paloznak before.

The international line-up will also include Al McKay’s Earth, Wind and Fire Experience from the United States MF Robots from Germany and Kraak and Smaak Live Band from Holland.

Each year, the Paloznak Jazz Picnic offers part of its revenue to those in need and this year the organisers plan to work together with the Together for Autistic People Foundation.

This will be the ninth jazz picnic, held in the village of Paloznak north of Hungary’s most popular holiday resort. Funk and soul feature alongside the jazz, as well as local wine and cuisine.

Attendees will also hear Saya Noé, a Budapest-based singer-songwriter and producer who describes her music as “moody and melancholic, electro pop with a hint of hip hop and trap elements”. Her debut EP “Taboo” came in 2018 and her first album “Museum of Sins” is now available.

Another booking is England’s Level 42, a jazz-funk band formed on the Isle of Wight in 1979. They had a number of UK and worldwide hits during the 1980s and 1990s, including “Lessons in Love”, which reached number three on the UK Singles Chart and number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart upon its release in 1986. An earlier single, “Something About You”, was their most successful chart-wise in the United States, reaching number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

After much success as a live and studio band in the 1980s, Level 42’s commercial profile diminished during the early 1990s following a series of personnel changes and musical shifts. Disbanding in 1994, the band reformed in 2001.

Other performers: Hungarian singer Magdolna “Magdi” Rúzsa won the 2006 title of Megasztár, Hungary’s nationwide talent search that resembles, but is not based on, “Pop Idol”. As the winner of the category “Newcomer of the Year” at the Fonogram Hungarian Music Awards in 2007, she represented Hungary at the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki, Finland, with the song “Unsubstantial Blues”. She finished ninth and won a Marcel Bezençon Award in the Best Composer category. She often performs songs by her favourite singer, Janis Joplin.

Kraak & Smaak is a musical production trio from the town of Leiden, Netherlands, consisting of Oscar de Jong, Mark Kneppers and Wim Plug. The three began recording in 2003. Their first album, “Boogie Angst”, was released in the UK in 2006 and they began performing at music festivals and at clubs in the US and UK.

Their songs were played on the radio and were used in television shows. Their second album, “Plastic People”, was released in 2008. They won a European Border Breakers Award (EBBA), an annual prize to recognise the success of ten emerging artists or groups who reached audiences outside their own countries with their first internationally released album in the past year. Their third album, “Electric Hustle”, was released in 2011.

Mario Biondi’s deep voice is described as unmistakable, being warm and sensual yet clear and confident. Born in Catania, Sicily, he was a lover of soul music from a young age. His breakthrough single “This Is What You Are” (2006) became a hit in northern soul clubs and could be heard on dancefloors worldwide.
In 2006, Schema Records released his debut album, “Handful of Soul”, which fused soul and jazz. It went platinum in Italy and received widespread critical acclaim.

Biondi has worked with such illustrious figures as Incognito (with whom he performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2013), Earth Wind and Fire, and Chaka Khan, and his albums “Sun” (2013), “Best of Soul” (2016) and “Brasil” (2016) have consolidated his reputation as Italy’s foremost soul and jazz singer.

De-Phazz is a downtempo jazz ensemble from Germany that since 1997 has been integrating modern turntablism and elements of soul, Latin, trip hop, and drum and bass into a lounge music sound.
Dutch jazz and pop saxophonist Candy Dulfer is the daughter of jazz saxophonist Hans Dulfer. She began playing at age six and founded her band Funky Stuff when she was fourteen. Her debut album “Saxuality” received a Grammy nomination.