“What is jazz?” – For Lajos Dudás, life is just jazz: Video

“What is jazz?”, Asks Lajos Dudás at the beginning of about 20-minute film documentary about him, which is simply overwritten with his first name and premiered last Thursday in the Pauline Sels Hall of the novel.

This documentary about the clarinettist, born in 1941 in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, is also the start of a film series on “Neusser Künstler im Portrait” produced by the Kulturamt Neuss, which was initiated by the “Zwei Müllers” (Original soundtrack Dagmar Wilgo, teacher for recorder the local music school, there now director) goes back. This refers to the head of the cultural office, Harald Müller, and the head of the music school, Holger Müller. Dudás, who taught at the Music School Neuss for 30 years until 2003, gives a mischievous grin even a possible answer: “Life is jazz.” 20 minutes are not much time to capture the changeable life and complex work of Dudás. Nevertheless, the documentary manages to strike an exciting arc over the life of the clarinetist. Of course, in short series of conversations, she only teases how well Dudás felt in Neuss, how strongly he influenced urban cultural life as a jazz clarinetist and how sustainable he was as a music educator. But also in this documentary it is not just about “Neusser” culture. Rather, the film wants to show the effect of Neuss emerging art on the world outside – according to the motto: “think global, act local”, and vice versa, Dudás is again one of the few clarinetists worldwide, who helped this woodwind to his right in contemporary jazz to have.

A little vanity is allowed Dudás, if he proudly looks back on his long life as an internationally recognized jazz clarinetist and composer. For example, how he met the bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie or realized with regional instrumentalists his idea of ​​modern, clarinet-inspired improvised music. Above all, however, the scenes with the guitarist Philipp van Endert are interesting when the two of them are sitting in the car relaxing while philosophizing on the way to a concert about life. In these scenes one learns a lot about Dudás – about the man as well as the jazz musician.

The film owes a satisfactory response to the question asked by Dudás. But there was the concert of the 77-year-old with the younger generation guitarist van Endert following. Certainly, jazz can also be a metaphor for life. Nevertheless, jazz is also and especially a music committed to the moment in which it emerges. In other words, jazz is pure emotion.