"It's hard to underestimate how important Jazz is as a political and artistic tool in a country that overcame so much adversity. Jazz in Poland was already listened to and performed live before and during the 2nd World War. It played an important role in the cultural & artistic development of the Polish underground music scene."

"After the war came the Communist regime and the Cold War. Music and arts from the free world were forbidden in Poland. Polish musicians listened to the Radio Voice of America and learned how to play modern jazz, eventually developing their own style."

"Jazz in Poland became a symbol of resistance against the censorship and often expressed the yearning for freedom and independence."

"Many great Polish musicians contributed to the development of Jazz in the world. Musicians of Polish descent have also been active for years working with some of the best American jazz musicians. The tradition of Polish jazz continues and its future looks promising despite the many challenges we face in today's economy."

Our undisputed MVP of the Ethnic Jazz Ensemble is a Hungarian jazz trumpet player Zoltan Grof. Zoltan grew up in the '50s behind the Iron Curtain in Budapest and attended the Bela Bartok Jazz Conservatory. He landed a spot as a member of the renowned Studio 11, the top orchestra and show band heard on Hungarian radio. Along the way, he mastered American jazz as if he had been a child in post-war Manhattan. He moved to Canada in 1983 and since 1989 he made South Florida his home.

Hungary's jazz tradition can be traced back to before the Communist empire crumbled. The country's love affair with jazz began in the 1920s and '30s with Hungary's own "Golden Era of Jazz." At that time, Budapest thrived as an international culture capital and jazz clubs littered the cityscape. But these clubs closed their doors with the onset of the Second World War and the Communist takeover that followed.

The Communist regime branded jazz as the "music of imperialists" and criminalized listening to or playing it. . . . Not surprisingly, the Communist ban on jazz backfired: by suppressing the idiom they simply added to its appeal and popularity, and Hungarians yearned for more.

When the Communists tried to stamp out self-expression and improvisation, jazz was one of the few areas of people's lives where a sense of individuality could develop and flourish. Defying the ban against jazz amounted to more than just evading another ridiculous Communist decree: for Hungarians, jazz became a personal pronouncement of freedom. Today, that statement of freedom can still be heard-, louder and more joyously than ever (quoted from http://www.budarpads.com/budapest-jazz-clubs.htm)