Kovács Ferenc - Bear Dance

The Bear Dance has been built up and transformed on the base of original songs from Méhkerék and other songs from the Balkan. Its irony has been inspired by an imaginative painting triology – Peasant hoeing in a pullover, Gipsy with banana, Bear without hair – of one of our musician friends who was died recently. He sang this song at the premiere, with an iron chain around his neck. The song with birds also starts in a Roumanian style but its main motif nourishes from an identically titled Hungarian folk song, and – with effects in the style of New Orleans and Steve Reich – it goes around a big circle. In the Gipsy song Sándor Budai, a leader of a gipsy band evokes from the little Hungarian slice of the world’s spiritual heritage, and then we go on with our Eastern roots, in the form of a variation of Star Whore you can know from the „Hatok” CD.

The improvisation named „A Tale” is a newer form of the ones you can hear on „Tranzit” CD.

The fairly longer „Pasha” – some parts of which can be heard on the „Beli Buba” CD – is really accomplished by now. It is a mixture of Hungarian and ancient Greek tones.

The song „Blessing from Somogy” was written for one of my wellknown friends commemoration, who has died recently. In his young days he was called „the Pasha of Buda”, and later he would actually deserve this name. Among others the establishment of „Hatok” can be owed to him.

The solo, then only string orchestra, then only brass band, contemporary music, folk music, jazz-like formations naturally lead to the creation of a big band named „Grand Magony”, which serves for the purpose that the best improvisative musicians take pleasure playing in it.