It was such a great moment that you can only find at festivals: At the “Intones“In August there was still jamming at night in the Weinstadel when Stéphane Belmondo picked up a colleague’s trumpet at midnight and blew a birthday serenade for Mirja-Leena Zauner, the wife and right hand of festival organizer Paul Zauner. The fireworks displayed by the 54-year-old Frenchman as it burned down from a standstill, it made it clear why he has been a member of the Champions League of jazz trumpeters for many years. So not only with the domestic cracks from Stéphane Grappelli and Michel Legrand to Jacky Terrason and Sylvain Luc, won and won all the important French prizes with his brother, the saxophonist Lionel Belmondo, with Brotherhood has one of the longest-running and most successful bands in the country. It also plays with US stars like Gil Evans, Dee Dee Bridgewater or Yusef Lateef. The relationship with the Zauners has been so close, at least since the intones, that Belmondo is now spending the turn of the year in a very special way: from December 27th to January 2nd he will be playing every evening for seven days with the quintet of the American jazz piano Veteran Kirk Lightsey a concert at Café Museum Passau, the city’s renowned jazz club, whose program Zauner has also been responsible for for many years.
Stéphane Belmondo & Kirk Lightsey Quintet, Mon., Dec. 27th, to Mon., Jan. 2nd, 6 p.m. (on the 31st at 7 p.m.), Café Museum, Bräugasse 17, Tel. 0851/21 24 64 10